Montagues and Capulets
by carelessdodger
Summary: Harrietta Shelby had always known she was adopted. With the war over, it was time to uncover her obscured conception. She never thought it would lead her to uncover a century old wizarding conspiracy, test every moral she had, the very person she was and deliver her to a family like no other. A Shelby never goes down without a fight. Blood will be spilt. Dad!Tommy Fem!Harry/Michael
1. Prologue

The silence of Godric's Hallow was almost agonising to Harrietta Shelby, better known as Harry to her closest friends. There was simply something… unnatural about it. It was if, sixteen years ago, nearly seventeen, the very land itself had been cursed on that fateful night, as dead as the two graves she knew stood just behind her in the remote graveyard. There was no tweet or bird song. No rustling of the wind. No hum or buzz of a street lamp. There was only nothing.

Possibly, that was why she loathed it so much, this place, let it unsettle her so, because, really, underneath it all, that was all she had too. Nothing. This ruined home, decayed and rotting, was just like her and that echo of her inner detachment terrified her. Standing there in the early morning sun, in the middle of the road, staring at the slowly crumbling carcase of what would have been her family home in another life, Harry was reminded, cruelly reiterated, of everything she never got to have. A soft hand, snug in a knitted glove, lapped around her own loose one dangling down at her side.

"You don't have to do this if you don't want to Harry. I know I've been… well, pushing you to look into it, but it is _your_ choice. Not mine. We can turn around right now if you want to."

Harry glanced to her side, taking in Hermione's gentle features, her warm caramel eyes and tender smile. Even now, after months of goading Harry, edging her, stoking her own curiosity to fiery life, at the end, Hermione, ever curious and knowledge thirsty, left it to be Harry's choice whether she delved into this pit of veiled enigmas.

Really, that was why Harry loved her friend so much. From Dursley to Albus, from Snape to Voldemort, Harry had never really had a choice in anything. But here, with Hermione, now, she had all of them and, in full, naked, unbearable honesty, it made her feel a bit queasy. Along with choices came conclusions and those endings, especially for Harry and her life thus far, proved to be repercussion rather than reward.

Harry tried to smile back, to comfort Hermione, but she was sure all she managed was some malformed grimace. The truth was she didn't have to do anything, not now that Voldemort was finally dead, but she _wanted_ to. There were so many answers to find, so many questions she had never let herself think to ask. Yet, now seemed to be the time of unveiling, of bearing her sins, to investigate the shadows and phantoms that haunted her past. Harry, after all, was a Gryffindor and they, their loudmouthed, hot-tempered lot, did not shy away from tough questions. Squaring off her shoulders in a rather false sense of bravado that did nothing to settle the inner turmoil she was facing, squeezing Hermione's hand, Harry grinned as best as she could.

"Then how am I supposed to know where I got my uncanny ability to find trouble from?"

Harry dropped Hermione's hand and began to trek over the road, digging out the key to the front door from her coat pocket. Harry had always known she had been adopted. In fact, Petunia and Vernon loved reminding her of that little detail. Repeatedly. Often through yells or fists or, as was her aunt's favourite, hair yanking and slapping when she misbehaved. Although, that was all they would tell her, that she was an outsider, a Shelby, not a Dursley or Potter, just an adopted freak. Maybe they didn't know who her real parents were. Maybe they got a kick out of never telling her and leaving her to the festering unknown. It was hard to tell with the Dursley's, but the fact remained they stayed mulishly silent and Harry stopped asking after the third time. It was an odd thing, indeed, to admit that Harry had never really cared about it before, had never been concerned enough to push further, to ask a fourth, fifth or sixth time. She hadn't thought of it much, in truth, for many years.

Well, that wasn't quite true, was it? Survival had taken up much of her childhood and teenage years. Between the beatings, starvation and neglect from her aunt and uncle, to being a child soldier and trying to outthink, outrun and outmanoeuvre men twice, triple her age and experience, merely endeavouring to live to see the next sunrise had taken up much, if not all, her mental and emotional energy. To be better said, it would be more honest if she were to say that she hadn't had the _time_ to think or question her adoption. It had just been a foot note in her life, a memo at the preface.

However, the war was over. Her relatives were gone. Tom Riddle was _dead_ and all of a sudden, it meant everything. It consumed her. Flooded her dreams. Taunted her thoughts. It was everywhere she looked and nowhere. She saw the question of her birth, her beginning, in young Teddy and the questions he would eventually ask Andromeda about Remus and Tonks. She saw the what-ifs and could have been's at every Weasley dinner. She saw the hidden questions she was dying to ask in her photo-album, the single one she had, when she flicked through them, staring at James and Lily Potter smiling back at her from aged paper.

Facing infertility troubles, like a lot of purebloods, James had broached the subject of adoption to Lily one stormy night. Remus had told Harry that much. Lily, with her heart so full and bright, had not hesitated to give one, a babe, in need the love she thought it deserved and so, had adopted Harrietta Shelby from a rundown wizarding orphanage in the midlands. Lily and James had cuddled and fed her, bathed and kissed her, rocked and loved her.

They had loved her so deeply, so truly, they had laid down their lives to protect her. For Merlin's sake, Lily's love had been so pure, so heartfelt, it had protected Harry fifteen years after her death. It was their faces, James's and Lily's, that Harry saw when she picked up the resurrection stone, it was their reflection she saw in the mirror of Erised, it was them who were with her when she died. They may not share the same blood, their time together may have been bitterly short, but they were her parents, her mother and father and nothing, no one, could ever change that. They were her _parents_. Anyone who said they weren't really family, well, they were a cold-hearted shallow bastard.

Nonetheless, that didn't stop the question of where exactly she came from, from plaguing her. And, funny enough, the answer was right there, in that house, on her original birth certificate. On a little slip of paper, there would be two names, just two and she would finally know exactly where her roots spread from. Perhaps her parents wanted her to know her birth ones all along. Perhaps that is why they never legally changed her name. Perhaps that was why she was a Shelby and not a Potter. Perhaps… Or, maybe, they had been mercilessly slain before they could do much of anything by a creature that could never understand love or affection or fondness.

Somedays, Harry pitied Tom Riddle. When she was feeling low, after awakening from faceless nightmares. When her hand trembled as she poured herself another fire whiskey to help burn away the fear. When, in the twilight, thought and feelings meshed into one shapeless beast and really, she knew, she and him were not so different, she pitied him with a vengeance. Yet, most days, she was vindictively happy. She was ecstatic, viciously elated that her adoption had been kept close to the orders chest, her errant last name explained away by a last-ditch attempt taken by Lily and James to save her from Tom Riddles grasp, to hide her from his followers. She was delighted that it was she, just before she fired the last shot that dusted him into the void he deserved, who told him that she wasn't even a Potter. She was adopted.

She would never forget Riddle's face when she told him, when his own spell began to fail, the realisation on his face just before he disintegrated. Harry knew, in that one moment, he _knew._ He had chosen the wrong child. There was no prophecy. _Born to a couple who thrice defied…_ Bullshit. It had all been bullshit. Self-fulfilling lies. Tom had, by trying to avoid it, created the very monster he so thought he could evade. Poetic. Ironic. Tragic. Perhaps that made her a bad person, the enjoyment she felt and still feels about that moment. Perhaps that was purely the least Voldemort could give her, that satisfaction at his own undulated failing and fear, after the hell he had put her through. Perhaps, as with all things, it was somewhere between in a shade of grey _._

Who knew? Harry didn't and, well, that was why she was here, wasn't it? Did her malicious streak come from her father or mother? Where did her onyx, uncontrollable curls come from? Where did her green eyes? Her pale skin? Who had her sharp tongue and dry wit? Was her mother as short as her? Could her father scrap as good as she could? Was she muggleborn or pureblood? Were they dead? Did Harry even want to know any of these questions? She didn't know. She knew nothing. And, just maybe, she was more like Tom Riddle than anyone wanted to admit because that unknown, that doubt, it left her feeling boneless, cut off at the stem, only half formed. She had a middle, her end would come one day but her beginning was nothing but smoke and mirrors and that, like Tom Riddle without his body, gorging on unicorn blood, left her with only a half-life.

First, she would find their names on her birth certificate, and then, well, she would decide from there. No rush. No fear. Baby steps. Maybe she would find their names, see them for herself and that would be enough to gratify her interest. Perhaps not. However, there was only one way to find that out and that was to do. To leap. To take that step of faith into the indefinite. Still, as the rusty key slid into the door with a clink and clank as it turned and unlocked, Harry couldn't help but feel like she was setting down a road there was no coming back from.

For the first time in her life, Harry hesitated with her hand clenched tight and white on the door handle. It was only for a moment, a beat of a heart, but it came, a wave of unfiltered dread, crashing over her, devouring her. It was just two names. Two. Words written on paper couldn't and wouldn't change who she was. Not at her core. Not her soul. She was Harrietta Shelby, friend to house-elves and wizards alike, the girl who wouldn't die. She knew who she was. She did.

She _did._

Huffing in a deep breath through her flared nostrils, Harry straightened her spine and pulled strength from her gut that she didn't know she had. She could do this. It was just two names. Or, so she kept telling herself. Twisting the handle, Harry pushed the door open and slipped into the shadowed hallway, glancing at Hermione from over her shoulder.

"You take downstairs and I take up?"

Hermione gave a nod as she went left, into the living room, as Harry wondered up the hallway, to the stairs that led to the bedrooms on the top floor. And so, the search began. They started off with the obvious places. Desks, tables, nightstands, cupboards, draws, anywhere that normally housed documents. However, all came up naught. Bills, photo's, letters to friends, they were all there, pleasantly still crisp, but Harry's birth certificate was no where to be found. After the two-hour mark passed, Harry was beginning to feel that pebble of dread in her gut churn to a sinking boulder that twisted her intestines. Had it been lost? Had there never been a birth certificate? No…

Sirius, in one of his lost memories he would relive when he dabbled into the fire whiskey a bit too much, told her that he had once walked in on Lily and James arguing over her birth certificate, red in the face and blazing, a brutal fight if he ever did see one, though they hushed up pretty quickly when they saw they had a visitor. Once, they had even told him to go to Godric's Hallow, to retrieve the damn thing, if anything should ever happen to them. Yet, of course, fate had played another hand and well, Sirius had been arrested before he could get to either Harry or the certificate.

It must have been there, somewhere. Anywhere. So, why would her parents hide it? Why make such a big fuss over a bloody piece of paper? Did they… Did they regret adopting her? Harry savagely pushed that thought away. They loved her dearly, she knew that much at least. Just as Harry slithered out from underneath a bed, checking to see if there were any boxes underneath, she heard Hermione's voice bellowing from down below.

"Harry, I think I've found something!"

Harry brushed the dirt off her knees as she jogged out of the room, down the stairs, hopping down three steps at a time. Harry chuckled. It could be she was more anxious about this whole thing than even she had previously known. Ducking her head into the living room, she found nothing but half drawn curtains and dust. Slipping through to the dining room, there was only plates half set, as if dinner had been moments from being served, and an old tea-pot. Creeping into the kitchen, she finally found her friend.

Hermione was kneeling on the floor, in the corner by the fridge, floorboards yanked up and piled at the side of her. Harry frowned as she edged closer. Her scowl only deepened when, on the very top floorboard, she saw etched upon its face, so small she nearly missed it, three initials. H. A. S. Coming to a stop besides an equally muddled Hermione, Harry crouched down on her haunches and peered into the little hole Hermione had excavated in the kitchen. If it had been later at night, earlier in the morning, without the bright sun pilfering through the large kitchen bay windows, Harry would have missed the little green tin box covered in grime and dust of sixteen years' worth of neglect.

There was no hiding the trembling of her hand as she reached into the ditch and picked up the box, pulling it free as she came to a stand with it clutched in her hands. Almost on autopilot, Harry blew a hot breath against its flat top, swiping at its face with a hand to remove the collected dust. There it was again. Carved across tin, in cursive writing, was those three initials. H. A. S. Harrietta Shelby? What did the A stand for? As far as she knew, she didn't have a middle name.

Not one known for her patience, quite the opposite actually, Harry tried to yank the lid up but the tin held solid and true. Glaring at the damned thing, she wandered over to the kitchen table, none too gently chucked it down, used one hand to brace it and keep it steady, and the other tried to yank the lid once more. The fucking thing remained shut.

"Perhaps there's a key around here somewhere? I'll go look in the living room and-"

"Ah, shit! Ow! Fuck!"

Harry cursed over Hermione as her hand slid, the lip of the lid of the tin box slicing through the pad of her thumb. Yanking her hands away from the damned menace, she flicked her thumb in the air before plopping it into her mouth, suckling at the stinging cut. There was just enough time for Hermione to give an exasperated _wait!_ Before a drop of Harry's blood splattered onto the box. The box glowed a sharp golden colour, bright, hot with a flash, before it popped open harmlessly, the shine fading.

For a second, nobody moved, nobody breathed, and everything fell still. Harry, with her history of Horcruxes, knew even the most innocent looking of things could prove to be disastrously contradictory. One needed only to look at Harry herself to come to that supposition. Both girls, slowly, cautiously, reached for their wands. It was only after Hermione's fifth scan of the box that Harry saw Hermione's shoulders sag in relief, and her own poised wand fell lifelessly to her side, the yell of a curse at the tip of her tongue slipping back down her throat like thick oil. Idly, she wondered if the taste of copper came from her own blood or the erosive feeling of Avada Kedavra moments from passing her lips.

"Blood wards. It seems Lily and James only wanted you to open this. You and…"

Hermione flicked her wand around some more, little tendrils of blue smoke twirling into runes before waning with a dying puff into the air.

"Remus and Sirius. Whatever's inside, they wanted it protected. These are some nasty wards."

Harry stared at the box. And stared. And stared. And stared. Her heart thundered in her ears, beating all thoughts from her mind, making her breath jagged and harsh. Finally, as if she wasn't in control of her own body, Harry reached over and flipped the lid fully open. She didn't know what she expected, black smoke, Tom Riddles voice, a dementors bony hand, but what she got was infinitely less visually grotesque but extraordinarily more ominous. On the top sat a little pile of yellowed, clipped newspaper articles.

Pulling in close to the box, Harry plucked up the little stack and thumbed through the articles. The titles only made her confusion condense into utter bewilderment that seized every cell in her body.

 _Pureblood infertility issues increasing, Wizarding world facing extinction?... Adoption rises as birth-rates fall… Wizarding Orphanage, Mrs Bloomers home for gifted children, under ministry investigation after allegations of temporal law-breaking swamps institution… Spike in historic muggleborn abductions uncovered by ministry officials as adoption agencies scramble to present official documents… Fifty-three wizards arrested and sentence to imprisonment at Azkaban for illegal time-turner use, impersonation of muggle social workers and over thirty counts of muggleborn kidnapping and selling to adoption agencies… Mrs Bloomer missing as Wizengamot comes to a guilty charge… Adopted children sequestered back into ministry care, but not all children found…_

Blindly, almost in a rush to search the box deeper, for what, Harry didn't know, she could hardly clasp onto one coherent thought, she handed over the articles for Hermione to take. As her friend began to diligently search through the articles word for word, Harry delved back into the box, ruffling through. There were two photographs, a chain of gold, half hidden at the bottom by two envelopes, wrinkled and yellowed by the sun.

Of course, the first thing to draw her eye was the photos. They were old looking things, edges curled and peeling, gloss long gone. The largest one was a group photo, black and white, almost overly exposed. A group of men stood together, dressed in some kind of uniform, smiling and laughing as they huddled. They were all in slacks and shirts, buttoned high on their necks, flat caps perched in varying degrees upon their heads. Three women stood off to the side, two younger and one obviously the matriarch of their group, close but in their own little grouping to the side. They looked to be a merry bunch.

"Blimey Harry, you look just like him!"

Hermione said in disbelief as she reached over her shoulder and gently tapped upon one figure right in the middle of the group, standing proudly in the forefront, news articles still gripped in one hand. Harry pushed her glasses up her nose and peered in closer. Hermione wasn't wrong. The man, though dressed like those around him, oddly stood out. From under his cap, she couldn't tell his hair colour, nor whether it was straight or curly, but Merlin, everything else rang too close to home. Those were her slicing cheekbones. Her jawline. Her upturned nose and keen arching brows. Even his hooded, cattish eyes felt reflective of her own, despite Harry being unable to tell the colour from their monochrome cast.

Flicking it over, she found the back empty. No names. No date. Nothing. Just more fucking questions. Gently, as if she expected the photo to crumble, she laid it upon the table and turned her attention to the last picture, black and white like the other. This one was more… Personal. Intimate. That man was back again, dressed precisely the same, standing next to one of the younger women from the preceding photo, something cradled in his arms. They looked younger here, so young, barely her own age, seventeen at the most. The woman's hair was untamed, dark and with an achingly familiar wild curl. The resemblance didn't stop there. Those were Harry's bowed lips, thin and long neck, willowy figure and pale skin. Then she caught sight of the bundle, really saw it, saw the chubby little hand that had wrangled itself free, saw a little bright eye peeking out, saw the lone onyx curl that had popped out of the wrapping and she knew.

That was _her_. Those… These… They were her biological parents. This… It was a family photo. In a frenzy, Harry searched the photo but found nothing again. Dropping it onto the table, Harry took to searching the envelopes. This time, lady luck did smile down upon her, for once. The first small one proved to be a letter, written in an unfamiliar script, sharp and pointed like her own.

 _Dear Harrietta, my precious little girl,_

 _I hope this letter finds you well, happy and healthy. There is so much to say, too little paper to write it down, and too many tears to stain the ink, so please, forgive me. We never meant for it to come to this, I could never dream of this malady befalling me. But times are tough, food is scarse and money even more rare. The social workers assure me this is the best option for you, and though it breaks my heart every second this will go on for, I would gladly bleed a thousand more times if it only meant for you to have a happy and healthy home._

 _You see, me and your father, we had you young. Too young. Too naive. Too green. Your father's aunt, Polly, says this is for the best, though, I am sure she only says so because her heart is breaking too. I see her tears just as clearly as I see my own in the mirror. They, the social workers, say it will only be for a short time, just until we find work and a stable home, but I feel as if I am about to lose you forever. Still, I pray our time apart is so short that you never have to read this letter. Even so, if you are reading this, then my worst fears have come true. If they have, know that you are loved. Dearly. So very, very much. Know that we are counting down each hour until you are returned. Know that, even years from now, you will always have a home with us. If you have come of age, I pray it isn't so and you are home with us soon, but if, then please, darling, come home._

 _32, Watery Lane, Small Heath, Birmingham._

 _We'll be here waiting for you, for however long it takes. We miss you. We love you._

 _Always yours, your mother and father,_

 _Lizzie Starke, Tommy Shelby._

Sick. She felt sick. Violently sick. The articles, the letter, gradually, confidently, they were piecing themselves together, but Harry couldn't stomach it. It just couldn't be. Not her. No. Harshly, as if the letter burned her skin, branded her, Harry chucked it away from her, at Hermione, who took it and read it as quietly as she had the news articles. Then she was tearing into the last envelope, finding what she had set out to discover. Her birth certificate.

There was her name, Harrietta Ada Shelby… H. A. S. She had a middle name, another name, right there, that she never knew about. Harry didn't know whether the laugh that broke free from her chest was more chuckle or cry, or, again, something offensively caught between. Above that was the names of her parents, names that seemed so insignificant now. Elizabeth Starke, Lizzie, and Thomas Shelby. There was her birthday too, 31st July 198-…

"Fake… This is fucking fake. We've found the wrong box or this is a mistake. A horrible mistake. I'm sixteen Hermione. Sixteen. Why-… How-… They got my birthday wrong. I wasn't born on the 31st of July 1906. I was born in 1980… 1980!"

Harry fell back a step, unbalanced, mind swirling. Wrong. It was all horribly wrong. It was a prank. An obnoxious joke. Someone thought it would be funny, to what? Convince her that she had been taken from a different time, sold into adoption? Why? Because the purebloods population was falling? No.

"Harry, the clippings, they aren't fake. It's documented. I think-"

Harry shook her head aggressively, curls zipping around her head.

"It's a stupid prank! I mean, how could-"

Hermione sharply cut her off.

"Harry."

Harry glanced up and saw Hermione's pale face. Yet, it wasn't her Hermione was looking at, no, she was looking down, over at the retched little box, ashen and wide-eyed and utterly sober. Harry followed her trail of sight and it was then, right then, that her heart lept right into her throat and choked the very life out of her. There, nestled into the bottom of the box, hidden by the photo's and envelopes, was the golden chain, but it wasn't _just_ a golden chain. The wheels around the pendant were shiny and glinting. The curved glass polished and clean. The sands inside golden and fine. There, staring up at her innocently from the bottom of the tin box was a time-turner. The birth certificate fell from her hand, sweeping to the floor like a leaf blown free from a tree branch as everything Harry thought she knew smashed around her.

* * *

 **WARNING:** This fic is going to contain an intimate relationship between cousins (Second cousins? Huh, I'm not good at genealogy XD). If this squicks you, feel free to ditch before things get going. In the time this is going to be mostly set in, 1920's, 1930s, cousin relationships and marriages was a thing not seen as taboo as it is today. In fact, it was quite common. Even now, in Britain, Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth are third cousins, Charles Darwin married his own first cousin and Queen Vic and Albert were cousins. Either way, this fic contains that and if it grosses you out (I don't really blame you XD), jump overboard now! (Never mind all the inbreeding going on in the wizarding world lol)

If you're one of the ones with a stronger stomach, who likes to dabble into the more grey shades of life, and like blood, criminal activity, a darker Harry and mafia-esque families, welcome aboard this totally insane ship. Buckle up passengers, we're hitting rocky waters!

I hope you all enjoyed at least a little bit of this… Whatever this is lol. As always, if you liked this, have a few words to say, a question, or simply wish to see more, please drop a review.


	2. Who's to say?

_**Hermione's P.O.V.**_

Even to Hermione, who had known Harry since she was a scrawny, scuffed kneed, waif of a child, Harry looked as strikingly devilishly imposing as Lucifer himself right then. Having commandeered a shaded corner table in the very depths of Aberforth's bar, the Hogs Head, even the regulars seemed to subconsciously skirt around her little plot. It wasn't hard to see why.

Leaning back in the booth, one arm draped across the back of the red leather seat, a lit cigarette balanced between her lips with a glass of fire whiskey in her free hand, the tendrils of smoke coiling from her mouth and the deep shadow from lack of candlelight only made her unnatural eyes, so green, so intensely vivid and keen, spark like floo fire. Harry had grown into her sharp features now, looking less malnourished scoundrel and more Grecian marble effigy. All Dionysus madness. Her hair no longer, still as wild as ever, swamped her, ate her small frame whole in one guzzling bite, but made her seem larger, bigger, uncontrollable and beyond snare and restraint.

Yes, Harry was an imposing figure indeed, able to make many men and women's flight instincts burst to life with one sardonic look of hers, but Hermione had seen her dimpled smile, so lovely and wide and honest, that this little devil at the crossroads picture she was painting seemed less imposing than it did heart-breaking. Her friend, her dear, lovable friend was hurting. Deeply.

"How did I know you were going to be here?"

Hermione said as she pulled up to the table, dragging a chair along the way to sit opposite Harry. Between them, on the round table, were two bottles of Rosmerta's Royal whiskey, one already empty and Harry deep into the second. Hermione winced. After the war, all of them, every single one, had found ways to cope with the memories. Ron slept around, living purely in the moment, snap decisions his only method of choice. Harry drank like a sailor, smoked like a dragon and would disappear for weeks on end, Sirius's bike her only company. Herself? Well, if Hermione smoked or huffed a bump of pixie dust once in a while, who was to say? It was either that or wake up in the middle of the night, screaming her lungs out, sure she was back in that godforsaken Malfoy mansion. They all had their demons now, and they all had their vices to quieten the demons with.

Harry didn't bother to face Hermione until the last second, downing her, what? Fifth, sixth, seventh drink of the evening? Before she slammed the glass back down onto the mahogany table, taking one long drag from her cig so when she spoke, it was like the smoke was coiling around the words, constricting like a viper.

"Have you ever tried going into divination? Oh, wait…"

Hermione didn't blame Harry for her drinking, nor her smoking, or her long solitary trips or often sarcastic and biting tone. The things Harry had seen, done, witnessed, having Voldemort's soul within her… Well, Hermione understood Harry's often cynical and derisive view of the world, and now, well, if anyone deserved to be pissed, it was her. From what Hermione had found since a week ago, after Harry had spotted the time-turner and stormed out of the house without a backward glance, she would have been angry, hurt and antagonistic too.

It wasn't every day you discovered that a group of wizards and witches, who had stolen a time-turner from the ministry, had abducted you from the bloody past. From what Hermione could piece together, when the infertility crisis of the wizarding world began to show face, adoption had hit an increase. No good little pureblood wanted their name dying out. Of course, where there's opportunity for it, a select few people would try and cash in on a dilemma. Muggleborns had turned out to be an attractive piggybank.

With the shockingly poor records of the past, mixed with the ease of a wizard manipulating a muggle, Mrs Bloomers orphanage for gifted children had been born. The plan, despite it all, was ingenious. Go back into the past, scope out a few muggleborn children from poorer families, families that wouldn't be missed or taken seriously by wizards or muggles alike, disguise themselves as muggle authority members, such as social workers, bully and scare the parents into handing over the child, hop back, and make a pretty little coin for your effort. From the ministry and news articles Hermione had read, the whole thing turned out lucrative if the three million golden Galleons confiscated from Mrs Bloomers vaults were accounted for.

The ministry had tried to right the wrong, by collecting what little documentation the orphanage kept and retrieving the children, sending them back to their rightful times and families, but not all children could be found due to Mrs Bloomers own flight from the long arm of the law and taking half the records with her. Harry, of course, was one of the poor kids forgotten and left behind. From there, things became only guess work on Hermione's part.

From seeing the box herself, seeing what was inside of that tin, to the wards placed on it, Hermione would guess that somehow, someway, Lily and James had found Harry's real birth certificate, most of the ones given to the adopted families by Mrs Bloomer being forgeries. Having done that, they saw everything for what it was. With the inclusion of the time-turner in the box, Hermione thought that, after and if, they survived their brush with Tom Riddle, they would have taken Harry back to her own family. If they didn't survive, they had planned on Harry, or Remus and Sirius, finding that box, discovering the truth themselves, and with that damned time-turner, taking Harry home. They wanted her to have a family, with or without them.

"Very funny Harry. Tell me, when are you going?"

And that was why she was here. Hermione knew Harry. Perhaps too well. Harry was emotionally cold. Arctic. Stubborn. Inflexible. Hot-tempered. Unapologetically blunt. More likely to set you on fire than to rub your back and tell you everything was going to be okay. A complete nihilist. But underneath all that, buried deep was a big heart, a heart that felt too much. And like Lily and James, Hermione thought Harry deserved a family, or, at least, a shot at having one.

Harry, with that big pessimistic brain of hers, would not see this for what it was, a chance at what she always wanted. _A family._ So, Hermione would have to make her see it for what it really is, not an easy feat given the person she was dealing with. Then, as Harry reached for the bottle of whiskey, flicked the lid clean off and poured her tumbler to near the brim, Hermione got a glimpse of exactly just how arduous this task was going to be. No one did tenacious like Harry.

"I don't know what you mean. I went for the names, I got the names. Finished. Done."

Hermione gave an incredulous huff of exasperation. Harry's voice was taciturn, aloof, her face cut and remote, but that was like everything with Harry. With her, you had to read between the lines. With her, what was left unsaid was what needed to be heard. Right now? She was hiding her pain behind a veil of thick apathy and indifference. To be fair, Hermione would have bought the act too, if she couldn't see the whitening of Harry's knuckles tightening around her glass.

"What? Harry, they're your family! Real family. Blood. Surely that means something to you?"

Harry lifted her glass to her lips, hooded eyes glaring at Hermione as the glass froze halfway. In full honesty, Hermione did shirk back just an inch from the withering frigidity of those unsettling eyes.

"Lily and James were family. They are dead. Remus and Sirius were family, and look at that, they're dead too. Me and family only seem to equal in death, Hermione. I've come to understand and accept that. What I don't understand is why it's so important to you. Why did you push me to look? _Oh, Harry, aren't you curious? Surely you want to know? Just have a look, what trouble could it cause?_ Every Merlin damned day, it was the same fucking questions. Why don't you invest that energy into your own family and mind mine?"

Hermione's heart faltered in a beat, a twitch, just one, spasmed under her eye and momentarily, her bottom lip quivered. It was quick, a flash, but Harry, that observant bastard that she was, caught most if not all of Hermione's brisk display. Frowning, Harry gently lowered her glass to the table, cocking her head at Hermione.

"Hermione?"

Hermione's eyes closed as she sucked in a breath before blinking back open. She knew Harry didn't mean it, not really, she didn't know, Hermione hadn't told her, lied to her in fact, and her biting remarks were what they always were, a shield used to bat back against her own discomfort, a reaction from a socially stunted individual who, to no fault of their own, had spent most of their social informative childhood years locked up in a bloody cupboard, starving. It wasn't her fault, but of course, even when Harry didn't mean to, she hit the ball too close to home. Finally, somehow, Hermione found the strength to answer, though her words felt like shards of glass slicing her throat to shreds.

"They're gone Harry. I lied. I-… I was too late."

The chuckle that bubbled up from Hermione was something broken, pitiful, half mad.

"They didn't even make it to Australia. There was a plane crash… A fucking plane crash. I was so worried about the Deatheaters and magic, I never saw it coming."

Her parents were dead. Gone. Just like that. After everything Hermione had done, obliviating them, sending them away, just so they could live, and they had died in a fucking plane crash! Some days, she sobbed and wept for them. Other days, she howled at the bloody irony of it all. After the war, Hermione had gone looking for her family. She had come back all smiles and laughter, saying they, her mother and father, were staying down in Somerset and she was visiting them every now and again. That was six months ago. She had lived with this for _six months._

Perhaps Harry wasn't the only one hiding from the pain. Perhaps, in some vicarious way, she was trying to give Harry the chance she would never get again, a chance to see her mother and father. Perhaps it was selfish of her, her using Harry as some conduit to live through, but having lost her own parents, knowing she would give anything, _anything_ , to see them again, hug them just one more time, Hermione thought she knew what Harry would feel if she never took this chance, when she was older and looked back, when the regret would sink in.

"Maybe that's why I've been pushing. I just thought-, I mean, if I could get you to meet yours, perhaps that would ease the pain of knowing I won't be able to see or go to my own mother or father. I know, it's selfish and egocentric but-"

In a rare, very rare for Harry, display of public affection, she reached over the table and held onto Hermione's forearm, squeezing firmly.

"Hermione, it's everything but that. You wanted me to have the one thing you didn't. I couldn't ask for a better friend then you."

And then it was over, her hand was slithering back to her own side of the table and Hermione could visually see Harry's guards slam back up. Even with Hermione, possibly Harry's closest friend, Harry could never fully relax, relinquish control, and really, that was so poignantly tragic. Was it her abusive upbringing? Was it the continual beatings life threw at her? Was it the years of having Tom Riddle in her head? Hermione didn't know but even in a crowd of people, Harry always seemed so… Alone. A family could change that. Hermione knew it could. She hoped it would.

Harry finally relinquished her grasp on her glass and stubbed out her cig in an ashtray as she delved a hand into the inner pocket of her leather jacket. She pulled out a slip of paper, aged, portrait style, and Hermione knew, though she could not see the front, that it was the photo of the couple and the baby. Almost tenderly, Harry ran a thumb back and forth of the front, eyes hooded and unblinking.

"Time-turners are one-way trips. I go, there's no coming back."

Hermione smiled. At least Harry wasn't telling her to fuck off, which, with her, was and always would be a possibility. Now, here came the tricky bit. She had managed to get Harry to think of the possibility of going back, to use the time-turner left to her by Lily and James, enough to at least begin to argue against what costs there could be, all Hermione had to do now was convince Harry that yes, she should go back, for once to put herself and her own wants forward, to damn the consequences.

"We're wizards Harry. We have long life-spans. A hundred years is middle age to people like us. Maybe, just maybe, there's an older, wiser Hermione and Harrietta waiting in the side-lines for us to go back. Waiting to come out to play."

Harry raised her eyes and locked them with her own, cocking one imperial brow high.

"We and us, Hermione?"

Time travel was, quite possibly, the most multifaceted, interconnected action anybody could ever endeavour to do. Loops. Cycles. Paradoxes. Locked time-lines. Parallel universes. All theoretical potentials. Whose to say they hadn't already gone back, there really was another, older, Hermione and Harry around here somewhere, waiting for their younger counterparts to take the jump, and, by not doing so, they were in fact the ones messing up the time-line? Whose to say anything when time travel was involved?

And yet, Harry wasn't bothered at all about that complexity. No, she was focused on Hermione's use of plurals. For once, just once, Hermione wished her friend would just overlook one thing, one damned thing. The truth was, as sad and pathetic as it was, without Harry, Hermione would have nothing left here. Nothing. Ron had gone his own way. Her parents were dead. The ambition her younger self had housed to become a professor or ministry employee had died a slow and painful death when Hermione had gone through the war, seeing things, for the first time, without her rose tinted glasses. There was nothing left here but phantoms and ashes. So, yes, perhaps she was being selfish again, but if Harry went back, so was she. She wasn't about to lose one of the only important persons left in her life. They were both broken, in their own way, but together, it didn't feel so crushing. Hermione's grin turned cheeky.

"You really think I would let you go back all by yourself? Merlin Forbid! I'd open a history book one day and find your face emblazoned on it. You'd be the English Che Guevara. Can you imagine? Muggles running around with your face on their shirts, shouting Vivi La Harrietta!"

Harry let out a dulcet laugh, all steel wrapped in the softest of velvets as she fell back into her chair, laughter dying off to a rasping chuckle as she scanned Hermione up and down shrewdly.

"Breaking the temporal laws, messing with history… When did you become the bad influence? I thought that was my job?"

Hermione winked at her.

"Furthermore, I'm sure if anyone can break the law of time, it would be you. You'd find a way back if you really wanted to, Harry. You've defeated death, took on the most powerful dark wizard of our time, led an army, a little time travel is nothing compared to that."

Glancing down to the photo she was holding for one last time, Harry slid it back home into the sanctity of her leather jacket.

"But it's not just time travel, is it? I'd-… We would be leaving everything we knew. Hogwarts, the Weasleys, I know you and Ron have hit a rough patch, but that doesn't mean I never want to see him again."

Hermione shrugged.

"What is left? Ron is going into his Auror training. You were beginning your studies to be a Medi-witch. I was applying for a ministry apprenticeship. When was the last time either of us, all of us, actually sat down and talked, had a meal, a drink? Months. We've been drifting for a while now Harry. Did you know Ron's engaged? Yeah, has been for a few weeks now, to Pansy Parkinson. Though, I doubt it will last. This is his third engagement this year. I read it in the paper. That's how far we've fell. We're growing up, growing apart with people comes along with that. But that's okay. That's a part of life."

Hermione could see a quick gleam of surprise dart across Harry's eyes before it was wrangled back under control. Yeah. She understood that too. She had been hurt by Ron's lack of communication, especially over something as important as marriage, but, well, the golden trio really had splintered. Still, as always, Harry was never finished fighting. Shaking her head, Harry spiked the verbal ball back into Hermione's court.

"That doesn't mean we should go spiralling nearly a hundred years into the past. I'm pretty sure, for most, that is not how life goes."

Fine, if she wanted to play rough, they'd play rough and cut through all the bullshit. Squaring her shoulders, Hermione crossed her arms and took on, what Harry used to call, her disappointed professor persona.

"I know you Harry, better than you would like me to, and I know what you are doing. Why all the excuses? Why are you trying to talk yourself out if this? _I know you_. Family has been the cornerstone of your life. It's been all you've ever wanted. Anybody can see that when you spot families walking passed in the street, when you go to the Weasley dinners, when you see kids playing in the park near Grimmauld place. Why are you denying yourself a chance at having that, the real thing, for yourself?"

Why was Harry fighting this so hard? Here was a chance to leave, to get away from the war and blood and haunting voices of the dead, and she wanted to stay? Was she so used to life snatching her wants from her that she wasn't even going to try and grasp her desires anymore? No. Hermione couldn't believe that. She just couldn't. If someone like Harry, with her burning soul and persevering ambitions, had been so beaten down by all this that she was giving up, the rest of them didn't stand a chance. Hermione wasn't willing to accept that. Not yet. Harry was back at her drink, downing the scorching liquid in one swoop before thumping the glass back down, just a fraction too hard, against the table. Angry. Harry was getting angry. Good. Hermione knew how to deal with an angry Harry, not a broken and defeated one.

"Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, I don't deserve a happy ending? I've killed people, Hermione. I've killed. I have blood on my hands and that shit doesn't just wash away. It stains everything I touch. And you know what? I'm _not_ sorry. I don't regret anything. I'm happy they are dead. I'm _happy_ it was by _my_ hands. I dream about it and, no, they're not nightmares. Not really. I dream and I awaken with a smile on my face and my first thought is to beg myself to go back to sleep, to dream all over again. I feel fucking victorious. What's that say about me?"

Hermione grimaced. So, it was true. There had been a space, a few months right after the final battle, that Harry had seemingly gone missing. The ministry was hushed about the whole thing, saying Harry was healing in private, but when the bodies started coming back, when the missing Deatheaters began to be crossed off the undesirable list, Hermione had her suspicions. However, when Alecto Carrow, the last Deatheater on the run, was carted back into Saint Mungo's mortuary, nothing but a dismembered lump of stumps and fractured bone, Harry had reappeared the very same day, jovial and lively. At the time, just happy to see her friend again, all doubts and fears had been pushed to the back of her mind. Hermione didn't want to see what was right in front of her.

Now, Hermione was only livid. Not at Harry. No. At them. The ministry. No doubt, that fucking ministry had come to Harry with the proposition before the rubble could even settle. When she had died, saw war, banished Voldemort's Horcrux, barely still coherent, having just lost Remus and Tonks and so many others, they had come to her in her most vulnerable time to, once again, use her as a weapon. Perhaps Harry wanted vengeance. Perhaps she was simply too used to war to give it up so soon. Perhaps Harry wanted the last laugh. Yet, who was she to judge? Merlin knew her hands weren't clean either.

"And you don't think the rest of us have blood on our hands? It was survival Harry. War. None of us came away clean. You killed Voldemort and Deatheaters who ran, but you weren't the only person in the war or the clean-up effort. Look at what I did to Umbridge? Centaurs don't take kindly to humans or witches on their land, I knew that. I knew very well what they would do to her, and when they recovered her body last year, the mangled mess it was, I didn't even blink. Do I not deserve happiness?"

Harry scoffed.

"Of course you do-"

"So do you! It was us or them, and we won. It was war. Horrible, terrible war, but we survived. I don't know about you, but I didn't survive the things I have to live on stuck in the shadow of a war we didn't start… Harry, Lily and James put that time-turner in the box for a reason. I think we both know they wanted you to at least think about going back."

Now, more than ever, Harry needed to get out of this, get away. She needed family. She needed normality. She needed peace and the wizarding world would never let her have that, would never stop reminding her of her sins and losses. They would never stop demanding pieces of Harry's soul.

"What if they're dead? 1920s Britain wasn't exactly the safest of places. What if they don't want to see me? What if they've moved on, had more kids, separated, moved across country? What do I do then? Set up a fucking bakery?"

The thing was, because Harry had aged sixteen years, they would need to go back sixteen years after her birth. 1922 England was not precisely welcoming or benign. Additionally, a fully-grown teenager saying they were a baby who had been taken away only months ago would be chucked out, or worse, institutionalised. So, if they did go back, they would need to hit the right year. Sixteen years, well, Hermione knew that was a lot of time for a lot of things to happen. Given the time, war, disease, poverty, crime could all lead to a demise. Wouldn't that be a punch in the gut? Convincing Harry, going back, only to find her parents already buried six feet under? However, there was hope and where there was hope there was a way. Harry had taught Hermione that.

"What if they're still waiting? What if they do have more kids? You could have a brother, a sister."

Hermione could see the idea physically hit Harry. She blinked, her nose scrunched, and her eyes darted to the side as she soaked in the possibility.

"A brother… I could have a brother? I never-… Siblings. I could have siblings."

Harry had been so busy debating the cost, she had forgotten to truly ponder what it would be she would be gaining. Perhaps a little conceitedly, Hermione rejoiced momentarily. It wasn't often she got to get one over Harry, and when she did, well, they were close enough to allow Hermione the fleeting enjoyment without causing serious tensions between them. Still, now that she had Harry on the metaphorical ropes, it was best to keep her there before she could swing back and K.O Hermione.

"Aunts and uncles, cousins, so much. The only way to find out is to go back. If things aren't what they seem, or they're dead or gone, we'll find a way back here. I know we will. When you have magic, not much is out of the realm of possibility."

Silence decisively fell around them. Suffocating. Harry stared into her amber drink for a long while. Finally, she finished the drink off, pulled out some money, placed it on the bar and stood. Hermione mimicked her movements as Harry began to stalk across the bar, towards the exit.

"Where are you going?"

Harry shot her a smile that would have put the sun to shame.

" _We_ are going to go and pack. If we're doing this, I'm not going to go empty handed."

* * *

 **So, here we are! What do you think so far?** In the next chapter, we're going to be hitting Peaky Blinders time **.** This fic will be set in, for the Peaky Blinders universe, at the end of season two but before season three starts. So, after the whole Epson races fiasco, but before Tommy's marriage. If you don't watch Peaky Blinders, fear not, most will be explained throughout the fic as Harry discovers her roots, so, really, it'll be like you're taking the trip with her.

 **So, I have a question for you:** _Who do you want Harry to meet first?_ Everyone is open, Polly, Lizzie, Grace, Tommy, Arthur, John, Isiah, Michael, anyone, (as long as they're from the Peaky's time-line) so please, if you have a preference (because I'll be honest, I'm having real trouble picking myself lol), let me know! Who ever wins will be the P.O.V taken for next chapter.

As for updates, I know I managed to pump this one out pretty quickly, but I'm currently on break from Uni and will be heading back in a weeks' time, so I'm trying to write as much as possible, when I have the time to do so. After next week, I'll try to keep updating to at least once a week, but things may crop up. I will try my hardest to post at least one chapter a week, though.

Thank you to everyone who followed, favourited and reviewed. Did you enjoy this chapter? Any thoughts? Questions? Theories? Please, if you have a moment, drop a review, they keep the inspiration flowing.


	3. Blood Knows Blood

**NOTE:** There's been a bit of a switch up! Some readers have asked for the timing to be changed a little, and, agreeing with most of the points given, I've decided to follow through and change it. So, Harry doesn't come in at the end of season 2, before season 3 of Peaky Blinders, she appears right at the beginning of season 2. As a couple of reviewers pointed out, this gives Harry and Tommy time to get to know one another without Grace, work or the new baby interfering. I hope the rest of you don't mind! But, well, I was thinking it over and yeah, I liked how it would fit together and switched it up XD. We're still in 1922, but we're going to be going through season 2 in this fic. Enough of my rambling, enjoy!

* * *

 _ **Polly Shelby's P.O.V**_

"Tomorrow? I'm the company's treasurer. You should speak to me first. It's new market tomorrow, the third busiest day of the year."

Polly cursed as she entered the treasury room of the Shelby's bookie, hot on the tale end of a swaggering Tommy. They had just left the meeting Tommy had called for the family and Polly couldn't be in a nastier mood. Not only was Tommy set on this expansion plan into London, where foul men made even fouler deeds, but Tomorrow? He had to choose Tomorrow of all days?

Oh, he could peddle his excuses like a snake-oil salesman, but Polly knew. She knew her boys and she knew Tommy. Tomorrow would mark a full sixteen years since, well, since the first true loss was felt by the Shelby family. Pretty it up with bows and nice wrapping paper, the rest of the family would buy it, but Polly wouldn't.

"Well, we have eighteen staff."

Tommy retorted as he rounded on one of the safes lining the wall, turning the knob with a flick of his wrist. Polly huffed as she skirted towards her own desk, sitting down. He knew very well what she had left unsaid, hanging in the air between them, and as always, Tommy had decided to glide right over it. No one did tenacious like Tommy.

"Who you trust with 200 quid takings?"

Polly saw Tommy struggling with the safe, sighing as he re-tried to enter the code. Polly smiled to herself. He did get his stubbornness from somewhere, didn't he? If he didn't want to talk about what tomorrow really meant to him, to them, then he could damned well inform her of what he had cooking in that dark brain of his.

"Oh, and I changed the combination."

She snarked as she felt a flare of satisfaction light up her chest. It served the bastard right. He wasn't the only one who could keep secrets if he so wished, and, for once, to be on the receiving end of being kept in the dark might do him some good, even in just a little way. Furthermore, if he didn't want to talk, well, he wasn't going to get any money, was he? With Tommy, it was always deals, bargains and negotiations, even for a tiny scrap of his thoughts. From the corner of her eye, as she took to her own book, scribbling down calculations and sums with ease, she watched Tommy place a hand on top of the tall safe, lean against it heavily as his head lolled.

"So, what is going on Thomas? Who did you meet at the Black Lion?"

First the Garrison being bombed to nothing but black ash and petrified wood. Then Tommy's secret meeting down at the Black Lion with the lord knows who. Now this expansion into London being pushed forward to tomorrow of all days and all the answers, all the pretty little dots and comma's, were floating around inside Tommy's head, never to grace their little mortal minds. Was it arrogance? The time of year? The hurt he must have been feeling? Polly didn't know, but Tommy was not willing to play any of her games.

"Give me the combination Polly."

No. That wouldn't do. Not this time. Instead of answering, Polly dug herself deeper into her book, pen scratching on paper. Tommy pushed off from the safe, stalked over, braced his hands on the edge of her desk and leaned over. Polly almost laughed. He couldn't intimidate her, not in the same way he could Arthur or John, he knew this too and so, he was left with only demands falling on deaf ears.

"Polly, give me the combination."

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. He bounced back from the table, shoving his hands into his slacks, shoulders back and neck bared. Good. He was angry. Polly knew how to deal with an angry Tommy, not a hurt one.

"What happened at the pub is Irish business. We're in a situation where, for everyone's safety, it is best if some things remain undisclosed."

Polly did chuckle this time. When weren't they in a _situation_? Tommy liked his secrets, he liked it as much as Arthur liked his gin and John liked a good fight, and normally, Polly would let him keep a few, just to make him feel in control, but not now. Not today. Especially not for tomorrow.

"So, why tomorrow?"

Polly looked up at him, looked him right in his bright, cold eyes and she didn't back down. She urged him then, commended him to say it. Give voice to it. To… Do something other than keep it bottled up inside. Maybe if he opened up about his own pain, she could do the same. _Go on, say it. Say it. Say it_. She thought. Say that it had been sixteen years since little Harrietta was abducted by those scum pretending to be social workers from the local parish. Say that still, to this day, he hadn't been able to find her trail. Say that he still hadn't given up, not like her mother. Say that, yes, this time of year, he became a little reckless, a little blood thirsty, a little unhinged because, well, that was the only way them Shelby's could ever express their emotions. Say it and recognize it.

"Like you said, tomorrow is new market. All the London bosses will be at the races."

Polly threw her pen down on her book, scrubbing at her eyes as she broke contact with Tommy. But, of course, he wouldn't say any of those things. Just like she would never speak of her dreams, her terrible dreams, of her little girl, on the other side of the road, screaming for her, telling her she was gone, dead. If anyone, _anyone_ , was to know what sort of pain and ache Tommy had, it would be Polly. Polly who, like him, had her own children, her little baby boy and precious girl, taken from her straining grasp. Perhaps Tommy was too much like her, she too, couldn't bring herself to say any of this, not in the light of day. At least, in some small measure of comfort for herself, her children had been taken by the actual authority and not strangers playing games. She knew her children had been fostered or adopted, not likely sold or killed or whatever other nefarious means illegal kidnapping entailed.

Oh, she knew, but the pain didn't lessen, just like it hadn't for Tommy all these years. They, those women, had seemed legit, real, god-fearing, good folk. The paperwork they had shown them, damn, Polly had never seen a more pristine forgery. However, when they had taken the babe, when months had passed with no word or document sent, when the original six months of Harrietta being in care ended and it was time, as the women had promised, for Harrietta to come home, they had all began to wonder. When Tommy had gone down to the parish, began asking questions, where no answers were found, no women having been sent to him or Lizzie on the decree of the law to take the child, the hammer had fallen. Was it the Shelby's enemies who had taken her? To send a message? Was it Tommy's fathers debts being collected? No one knew, and the little babe had been swallowed by Birmingham's fog, never to be seen again.

"So, you just roll up and take the city?"

Perhaps Polly didn't want to speak of it either, to think or breathe that possibly, likely, it had been sixteen years since her death tomorrow. Polly shook her head. No. She didn't believe that. Tommy didn't either, not with the continual flow of back end bribes he kept funnelling to the police to keep looking.

"No. We take the opportunity to show our hand. The Italian gangs and the Jewish gangs have been at war in London for the last six months."

Polly frowned…

"It's not our war."

Tommy cocked a brow…

"The Jews have been having the worst of it. They need allies."

Polly began cracking…

"Yeah, but we don't."

Tommy chipped away some more…

"We need a foothold at the southern end of the Grand Union. The Jews control Camden Town."

… And Polly broke.

"Your mother said it will be his cleverness that will kill him."

She rung her hands together in front of her, around and around and around, just like life, just like this conversation, just like hope, down and down, spiralling. Tommy's voice, usually so brisk, frigid, calmly in control, took a softer note.

"No one gets killed Polly. We go down tomorrow, when it's quiet, and we leave our message. If Alfie Solomons and his Camden boys come to us, we'll negotiate the use of a secure bonded warehouse and then our legal activities in London can begin. Now, please, open the fucking safe."

War. That was what Tommy had in his blood. In his heart. In his god-damned dark mind. War. Hadn't they all suffered enough? Hadn't they all paid the devil his due? Life had been going good, great, for the first time in such a long while. Money was a continual flow, no one was hurt or worse, dead, and here Tommy was, readying the horn that would bring hell raining down upon them. And what for? A fucking warehouse? Polly jolted from her desk, marching over to the safe, but stopped shy just a foot from it.

"You know, it was a fine speech you made back in there, about this company believing in equal rights for women. But when it comes down to it, you don't listen to a word we say. Maybe you don't trust us. I don't blame you, not really, but not all women are like those two harlots who masqueraded as social workers and took-"

"Open. The. Fuckin'. Safe."

He couldn't even hear of it. Little Harrietta was left as a dark secret, a hidden thought, a phantom, trapped. It broke Polly's heart. Bending down, Polly opened the safe. Tommy stormed passed her, pulling stacks of notes that he shoved hastily into his pockets. Polly, knowing when not to push, faded back to her desk. But no, not this time. She would speak of her, give Harrietta life in some form or shape, in her voice, in her heart, in her mind, even if Tommy couldn't bring himself to. As Tommy retreated, Polly shouted at his back.

"You know what? You and the boys can get yourselves killed! Let your daughter return to a fuckin' grave stone!"

Tommy slammed the gate to the treasury room behind him, never looking backward, not once. Polly's face crumbled as she slammed her own book shut, running a hand through her tangled hair as she sagged against the desk.

* * *

 _ **Lizzie Stark's P.O.V**_

Elizabeth Stark, better known as Lizzie, scrambled between her legs to pull up her knickers just as Tommy began pulling away from her, buttoning up his trousers. Now that the high of sex was wearing down, simmering, reality began to creep back in. They weren't back in 32 watery lane, in a cramped bedroom that smelled of smoke and firewood. They were no longer little fifteen-year olds, playing at being adults, enacting the game of young love. There was no babe swollen in her stomach, rounded and pleasant, or besides them, in a crooked Massenet basket. No. Lizzie was a prostitute, broken, defeated, beaten down by life. Tommy was a fully-grown man with blood on his hands and a special bullet in his gun. They were in Tommy's office, bought by the death and suffering of others, not that cosy room with peeling wallpaper. Tommy couldn't even look her in the eye. And Harr-

The fantasy, the one Lizzie always played in her mind, the memory of another time, another life, began to crack and splinter around her. However, it was too tempting, too pleasant, that little trip down memory lane, the chance at pretending, just for a moment, that nothing had changed, _they_ hadn't changed, felt too alluring to let crumble around her. Not straight away.

"You going to London now?"

 _Just talk to me._ That's all Lizzie wanted. A conversation. A real one. Where there was no stagnation, no hidden underlying understanding of pain. She just wanted him to talk to her like they used to. However, it wasn't meant to be, it never was, as Tommy was already putting his waist coat back on, already edging towards the door, eyes down and away. Lizzie bit back at the bile rising in her throat. Couldn't he look at her anymore?

"No. There's something I have to do first."

He began to put his gun holsters on, buckling them at his chest, and Lizzie felt cut to the bone. After all they had shared, and he was just going to walk away, so easily, like he always did? But not today, not today when it was so close, tomorrow would mark the sixteenth year since Harrietta was taken, and he could at least talk to her. She spotted a typewriter on the desk behind her and walked towards it.

"Huh, I've got a type writer like that. Got it out of a catalogue. I'm doing a correspondence course, I'm learning to do it with my eyes shut. It's a test you have to do."

She's rambling, words just flowing and Tommy's so silent, remote and it breaks her heart because it was in times like this her little fantasy broke completely. Harrietta wasn't sleeping in the other room, they were no longer young teens, too young, and that bond, that love broke the day Harrietta had been taken. She couldn't live her life in the past, no one could, despite how much she wanted to. Still, Tommy was the only physical thing Lizzie had left of Harrietta, the one thing she could look and touch and smell and, in some way, be close to her babe once more and that, well, that was something she could never quite let go of.

"Will you be back before you go?"

He doesn't look at her. He never does after sex. Not anymore. Instead, he takes to inspecting his gun, popping the barrel, counting bullets, clicking it home and spinning the damn thing before shoving it into the holster at his ribcage. Idly, she wonders who those bullets are for this time. A friend? An enemy? The mess that remained of her fuckin' dignity?

"No."

Tommy swung his suit jacket on, pulling out a roll of notes, slapping a few on the table and once again, Lizzie feels as dirty as Small Heaths streets. Was that all she was to him now? Another prostitute? Something faceless to fuck and pay and move on from? What hurt the most, what fucking bled her, was she could still so clearly remember the love and fondness in his eyes back then, so crystal clearly. Still, fucking still, she took the money, thumbing through it.

"I wish you would stop paying me. Just once. You didn't always do it. Can't you even stay in the same bloody room as me for ten minutes? There was a time when we loved each other and had a daugh-"

" _Have_. We _have_ a daughter Lizzie. I'm not the one who gave up looking years ago."

And he left.

* * *

 _ **Polly Shelby's P.O.V.**_

Polly stumbled out of the small front door, tears streaking her face, words clogged in her throat, mind whirling a mile a minute, breath rapid and keen as a building whine pierced through her. The fortune teller had confirmed her worst fears. Her dreams, those horrid, foul dreams, were true. Her daughter was dead. _Dead._

"No, no, no, no!"

She could feel herself breaking like a glass vase stomped by hoof. Damn the fortune telling bitch. Damn the parishes who took her precious children. Damn Tommy and his own grief stirring her own, inciting her to come here, to a fortune teller of all things, to question what happened to her own children. If Tommy had no chance of finding his own little girl, what hope did she ever dream of having of reuniting with hers? None now. She was dead. Her little girl was dead and her tears fell like rain on a November night. From somewhere close behind her, the slam of a car door echoed through the chilly night.

"Are you okay miss?"

No. Not like this. No one, not even the boys, would ever see her like this, let alone a stranger. She still had her pride, her dignity. The good lord couldn't take that too. Viciously swiping at her face, trying to remove all trace of pain or torment, Polly tried to hold back the flow of sobs that wanted to burst from her chest. Not here. In private. She could break and sob and yell and heave in private. Casting a quick glance up into the night sky, all she found was thick black clouds. Who would be traipsing around Small Heath's dark alleys and nooks at this hour?

"I'm fine."

Tugging on the lapels of her coat, Polly straightened herself up and painted on a calm face. That was something she could control, how the world viewed her, how she acted. No one would see the agony underneath it all. Never. She couldn't and wouldn't allow them to. Finally feeling half respectable, Polly turned around and eyed up the silhouette before her.

The lamps down the street weren't the best, most having broken a long time ago, and with it being well into the night's hours, it was hard to pick up much of the small figure standing next to a crimson red car, a 1920 Citreon Torpedo, if Polly wasn't mistaken. She wasn't, she never was, and that car was a pricey little number. The young woman, Polly could tell by her voice, soft and raspy, deep for a girl, was quite a beautiful sound, all smoke and rich jewels. She wore a large brimmed cloche hat, hair tucked inside, further shadowing her face and features into smudged obscurity. She was dressed warmly, leather gloves on hands, in a thick white knitted jumper tucked into a high-waisted black skirt that fell to her mid-calf loosely in a flattering asymmetrical A-line, little belt cinching it in at the waist and, on her feet… Yes… Once again, Polly wasn't mistaken, she was wearing _men's_ work boots.

"Not from around here, are you?"

Not with fine clothes like that, a new model car behind her, or the innocence of stepping out of said car to ask a complete stranger if they were okay. No, she was likely a passer-by heading back to her father's manor over in Evesham or some other posh little country place where the real world was barricaded away.

"Just visiting. Look, do you want me to go in there and sort them out?"

Sort them out? This girl? So small and finely boned, like china? Polly, despite having cried just moments ago, broke out in a peel of unfiltered laughter.

"No, you're quite alright, sweetheart."

Polly saw the shadow of her head bob as she nodded, before she strolled back over to her car, pulling the door open. However, she stepped back and away from it, instead of slipping in and driving away, which, here in Birmingham, would have been the smart thing to do.

"Hop in, I'll give you a lift home."

Did this stranger think she needed help? Her? Polly? She was a god damned Shelby and she wouldn't take pity.

"I said I'm fine."

Polly could see the girl crack her neck, as if she, Polly, was the one pushing _her_ limits.

"Look, it's dark, late and I know places like these. Take a wrong corner and you're going to get stabbed. Or worse. Now, if I let you wander off, in the state you're in, that will presumably be your fate. People saw me drive down this road. My car's pretty recognizable. It wouldn't be long before the police found your body and came knocking on my hotel door, demanding answers. I don't fancy sitting for hours down at the station explaining why I drove passed or how it wasn't me who bloody mugged you. So, do us both a favour, and get in the fucking car."

 _Open. The. Fuckin'. Safe._ Polly heard it, clear as a morning song bird, in the back of her mind, Tommy just earlier this morning. It was uncanny, unsettling, slightly hilarious that from this barely five-foot three woman, she would hear Tommy's voice. For the briefest of seconds, Polly thought this might have been a trap. A lure. Some gang or other sending out a harmless looking thing to lead her down a dark alley where she would be met at gun-point for one or another transgression. The girl was obviously more adapted to street life than Polly had first given her credit for. Yet, Polly had her means of protection hidden around her person, she knew the roads of Birmingham like the back of her hand and if the woman took a wrong turn, she would know and, of course, use the gun hidden safely in her clutch bag.

"Well, when you put it that way, who am I to decline?"

The faster Polly got back to base, the faster she could let herself go, knock down the dam barely holding back the storm, and drown her sorrows in a bottle of gin. Strolling over, Polly slid into the passenger side of the car, the woman walking around the front to hop into the driver's seat. Barely before Polly could fully close the door behind her, the woman was off, driving down the street. An impatient little imp, then.

"Where to?"

She asked in that dusky voice of hers, as Polly turned to look at the girl. However, the brim of her hat, the odd side-sweep it was cut from, added to the angle she had it perched on her head, covered all but the very bottom of her jawline as she was faced dead ahead, towards the winding roads before them. Oddly, Polly wanted to reach over and snatch the hat right off her head, to see her face, but held herself back. Her nerves were raw, aching, and she was tired. So very, very tired.

"If you're visiting, you won't know it. I'll give you directions as we go. Take a left here and keep going until we hit the roundabout."

Polly wasn't about to lead the young woman to her home, just in case, the very off chance, that this was a trap set by the Peaky Blinders enemies. Who could say with the Garrison, their bloody pub, blowing up just that morning? Still, she would get the girl to take her to the bookies, where Polly would either try and work the night through or drink until sunrise, or, more than likely, she passed out to sweet oblivion. Reaching into her breast pocket, Polly pulled out a carton of cigarettes, lighting her own before offering the box out to the woman.

"Do you want one?"

She glanced her way quickly, so quickly, that Polly still couldn't catch a glimpse of her face. However, she had a feeling the woman was smiling as she blindly reached over and took one, a match too, striking it against the steering wheel and lighting her cig before sighing in bliss.

"Aye, you wee beautiful cunt. Cheers."

Polly's eyebrows raised sharply before they settle back over her dark, hooded eyes. Perhaps not a lady or heiress then.

"Scotland?"

The woman chuckled, and it was more decadent than the puff of opulent smoke that accompanied it.

"The brogue slips out every now and again. I spent the last two years and most of my childhood up there, in the highlands. It's kind of hard not to pick up the local flavour."

Now that she had said it, there was definitely, hidden deep between the curls of her tongue and clack of teeth, a Celtic twist to her voice.

"Scotland is a long way to come for just a visit, especially when one packs so light."

Polly said as she glanced to the rear-view mirror, eyeing the single medium sized suitcase in the back. Again, the woman chuckled warmly, a bit too loudly, as if she knew a joke no one else did.

"Trust me, it fits more than you can imagine. Where now?"

Polly nodded, though, she didn't quite get the jape.

"Take the first left off the roundabout, carry on until you hit the old laundrette, then take a right. So, have you come alone?"

There's a flare of bright orange light as the woman takes another drag from her cig. For a flash, Polly sees a curl had fallen loose from under her hat, thick, coiling down her neck, darker then the devil's soul.

"No. I have a friend with me, but she's already at the Grand Hotel."

Polly frowned.

"Got split?"

The girl took a final drag before flicking the butt straight out the open window. An avid smoker too, then, if she could finish a smoke off so quickly.

"No. I popped out trying to find a place, but, well, Small Heath is like a bloody maze. Before I knew it, the sun had set and I was over the other side of Birmingham. Then I ran into you on the way back, and, as they say, the rest is history."

Polly hummed. She didn't quite know why she was so keen on knowing the answers this girl was offering, but she was. Perhaps it was because, after so long in a place like Small Heath, even the barest and smallest offers of kindness were an ulterior motive to something murkier. Perhaps Polly simply wanted some time away from her own issues, her own life, and this was a way to find a few minutes of peace from being a fuckin' Shelby. Or, maybe, she was just so bloody tired. It hadn't escaped her notice that, for the third time now, the girl had been ambiguous, cautious, on disclosing why exactly she was here, in Small Heath. She was good, offering other tidbits of information to distract, but Polly had years of experience with Tommy and he was the king of shadow talk and mirror games.

"What brings you all this way?"

The girl began to tap on the steering wheel, in a sequence of two, like a heartbeat.

"Visiting family… If they're still here, that is."

Polly took a drag of her own cigarette before throwing the stub out the window.

"Estranged?"

The tapping stopped, and silence fell severely around them. Then she was tapping again, voice purposefully light and airy and kind… And obviously fake. If Polly had of been anyone else, someone who had not led the life she had, she would have bought it. The girl was a good actress.

"You could say that. I haven't seen them in nearly sixteen years."

Sixteen years? On the back of her eyelids, as she blinked, Polly saw _their_ faces. Michael's golden curls and rosy cheeks, her little girl with her braids and lopsided grin, and little Harrietta, so small, so pale with her bright, bright eyes, and the tears began to collect at her kohled lash line again. Polly sucked them back with the force of all she had. Her son would be seventeen now. Her daughter eighteen but- _Later. Later. Later._ She could break later. When Polly spoke next, there was no hiding the serrated tone her voice cracked into.

"Then it's good you've come back… To them. They would like that."

Polly knew she would, if, one day, her son and daughter drove up to her. How many times had she dreamt of just that? How many dreams did her Tommy have of seeing Harrietta walking up his pathway? Too many. Yes, they had paid the devil handsomely for the money and security they had now. The price was too high. It was always too high.

"Well, let's hope they recognize me first."

The girls voice was dry, crisp, quick.

"I'm sure they will. Blood knows Blood. When was it the last time you saw them?"

Polly had to believe that. It was in them, their family, the Shelby name, to know one another, to pull together, to, no matter how far or how long they'd been away, they would all come _home_ eventually. It was in their gypsy blood. Of course, the girl might not fall into the same familial recognition hers had, but, perhaps, Polly had been speaking to herself all along. Telling herself what she wanted to hear.

"Oh, give or take a few weeks? I was a couple months old."

Polly spluttered in surprise.

"You're only sixteen? You travelled from Scotland with only a friend? It must be close family?"

There was just something about her, an air, a feeling, that she was an old soul. Ancient and unbending. Maybe Polly was just seeing Tommy's reflection again. She was seeing Tommy everywhere today.

"Yes."

The tone was unyielding. A nail in the coffin. A shot fired. Polly was jolted by the sudden coldness of it, the deep, almost growling gravel. Polly could see her stiff shoulders, the only sign of her discomfort but then she was speaking again and the wicked bite is gone, dancing along the breeze, delicately exposed.

"It's-… I… I'm looking for my father and mother, you see. I was taken away when I was young. I always knew I was adopted, I have me da's last name, but I was never told my biological parents full names. I found my birth certificate a few weeks ago, saw their names finally and… Had to come see for myself."

There it was again, that little drop of common blood. _Me da's last name._ The young woman hadn't always had money. She coughed then and wiggled a little bit in her seat, clearly uncomfortable with her own openness. Just before Polly could push further, she was diverting the track with well-practiced ease.

"Now, enough of my sob story. What the hell were you doing in the middle of the road crying like a banshee?"

Polly chuckled at the blunt honesty. She would fit in well with her boys, especially Tommy and his sharp tongue. Despite her normally guarded nature, Polly found herself answering back in the same fragile sincerity.

"I went to a séance. It wasn't good news."

The girl scoffed and Polly heard the distinct sound of her leather gloves creaking as they were stretched, tightening around the steering wheel.

"Forget it. Trust me, fortunes, séances, prophecies, they're all a loud of bullshit. Right, where to now?"

Polly pointed over to the side.

"Take this road and then pull up to the second house past the alleyway on the right. Just there."

The girl bobbed her head and turned the car down the short road to the Shelby bookie. While what she said was nice, Polly still couldn't shake those dreams she had of her daughter. She didn't think she ever would. Finally, they pulled up to the gambling shop and the young woman cut the engine dead. Hearing aunt Brandy calling her name, Polly slipped out of the car without anymore preamble, walking around the front of the car towards the bookie's main door.

When she stepped up to the door, Polly's hand stalled on its way to her pocket. She had been planning on saying a quick and polite thank you and goodnight before heading in, but the words lodged themselves between clenched lips. For some unknown reason, something in Polly's gut screamed at her, something hot and visceral and squirming, twisted and churned, an instinct Polly had never over looked before, having saved her and the boys lives many a time, and she instead, offered invitation.

"Do you want to come in? Have a warm up? A cup of tea?"

She heard more then saw the girl shuffle in her seat.

"I don't drink tea."

The instinct was still there, still yelling and contorting, but before Polly could either propose something else or try and figure the feeling out, the girl was jumping out of the car and slamming the door closed.

"But after the day I've had, if you have a free glass of gin or whiskey stashed somewhere, then I'm game."

Polly smiled radiantly, that guttural feeling fluttering away, pulled out a key from her coat pocket and opened the door, speaking to the young woman over her shoulder as she did so.

"A girl after my own heart. For an extra glass of whiskey, do I get a name?"

Shuffling into the darkened gambling den, everyone having gone home at this hour, Polly was only saved from tripping over a chair or table by her impeccable memory. Skimming around the edge of the room, Polly reached up and turned the gas lamps on one by one. From the darkness, she heard footsteps follow her into the building before the scrape of a door closed. When the last lamp was lit, when the room became pleasantly light and bright, Polly turned around and faced her guest, only to find the girl with her back turned, eyeing up the large chalkboard with that afternoons winnings and losses scrawled upon its dusty face.

Polly watched as the girl stretched up and pulled off her hat, a cascade of thick, raven curls flooding down her back, wild and shiny. For a blink of an eye, Polly saw her brother's wife, with hair so similar, the same jet shade her son, Polly's nephew, Tommy, had inherited. Then the young woman is turning around and speaking, and Polly doesn't see Tommy's mother anymore.

"Harrietta Shelby, but Everyone calls me Harry. What is this place?"

Polly caught herself on the desk besides her before her knees could buckle. She doesn't see the boy's mother, no, she sees _Tommy_. The girl is smiling, dimples and all, looking around with bright, striking green eyes, the same green eyes Polly remembered on Tommy's mother, on Tommy's daughter. _On Harrietta_. She looked so much like her father, unarguably so, that it almost burnt to gaze at her, though she had her grandmothers' eyes. The Shelby blood was strong in her, thick and potent, that much was clear. Tommy couldn't have doubled himself better if he had spat the child out himself. There were hints of Lizzie too, hidden beneath Tommy's reflection. The thin swan-like neck, the long legs, the delicate piano fingers she was using to grasp the black cloche hat to her chest, but all of it was over-written by Tommy's shadow.

"What did you just say?"

Polly found herself dumbly questioning. The girl-… Harrietta's smile twitched at the very corners, a brow popping up onto her forehead. Jesus H Christ and the blessed mother Mary, Tommy had the same face when he found something amusing.

"What is this place?"

Polly lurched forward, towards Harrietta, away from the desk she was holding herself up on, not in full mental or bodily control. The girls smile dropped immediately, her eyes becoming cold shards of frosted glass, her feet bracing, spreading, balancing, readying. A fighter. There it was again, the Shelby blood.

"Before that? What did you say? What did you say?"

Polly demanded breathlessly as she came to a pottering stop close to Harrietta, so close, soaking in her features. An errant chuckle broke free from Polly when she saw, just like her father, she had one lone freckle above the arch of her right brow, besides the nasty looking, oddly shaped scar splitting down her forehead. _It was_. It really was her, little Harrietta, in the flesh, breathing and alive. She was here, she'd come back.

 _Blood knows Blood._

"I'm Harrietta Shelby?"

Polly went to touch her, hug her, hold her, but her hands froze in the air as she saw Harrietta drop her hat to the floor, hands coming to her side, clenching, forming a fist. She didn't know who Polly was.

"Your father is Thomas Shelby, isn't he? Your mother Lizzie Stark?"

Oh, Polly knew that look too. The grim emptiness, the frigid artic winds and cutting bone. Tommy got the same look when someone crossed the line with him too. Another chuckle, mad and elated bubbled free.

"How do you know that?"

Polly couldn't hold back anymore. Before Harrietta could throw a punch, she was swept up in Polly's arms as she pressed the smaller girl to her tightly, laughing, one hand curling into her hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her into the embrace. The girl hardened, muscles tense, locked, from shock or anger, Polly didn't know, but Polly was already rambling.

"My names Polly, I'm your-"

The stiffening eased immediately and she could feel Harrietta take in a deep, relieved breath.

"Aunt Polly. You were in the letter."

The letter! She had the letter. After exhausting every search route and record and finding out that the social workers who had taken Harry had not even been social workers, but crooks and soulless bastards, that letter had been their last hope. Just one hope, that one day, Harrietta would read it and come back, as slim as that chance was. Something heavy lifted from Polly's chest, something she had been carrying for all these years. _Guilt._ It was her who convinced Tommy and Lizzie to hand over the child, that they couldn't fight the social workers, because, well, she had fought for her own kids and look how well that had turned out? They wouldn't even allow her to know where they had been adopted.

Something wet trickled down her cheek as Polly pulled away, hands going to cradle Harrietta's face as she tried to look at everything, absorb everything, from lash to chin, fingers brushing back rowdy curls.

"You came back… You came back…"

And then Polly is hugging her again, tightly, so tightly, but Harrietta's arms were coming up too, enveloping around her, holding her close, fingers digging into her back and the tears did fall freely as Harrietta whispered into Polly's shoulder.

"I came _home_."

* * *

 **How are you liking it so far?** I just want to quickly touch on some of the choices I made this chapter to help better explain the road I've taken.

Firstly, is Tommy and Lizzie and their relationship (If we can even call it that XD). I really wanted to keep the dynamics of the canon Tommy and Lizzie for this fic, especially in the beginning. However, for this fic to work, they also needed to have been close enough in some form to have a child at some point. So, as Polly said, before the war, Tommy was always laughing. I like to think Harrietta's abduction had quite a dramatic effect on a very young Tommy and Lizzie, as the war did on Tommy later on. In trying to deal with having their child taken, I had Tommy and Lizzie deal with it in very different ways. Lizzie, in her hurt and grief, tried to move on, get passed it, repress it in a way, and yet, because it is her _child_ , never fully capable of letting the past go, and therefore, never being able to move on from Tommy, the last tie she has to her child. I thought that would fit in with how we find Lizzie in season 2. Despite the shit Tommy puts her through, she's always there for him, has his back and the prostitution is just another way of her dealing with an emotional and physical loss.

Tommy, however, couldn't move on, couldn't stop looking and searching. I just don't think it's in his nature to have something taken from him and he to turn a blind eye to it. This, obviously, as we will explore later, had a very nasty effect on both Tommy and Lizzie and their relationship. In other words, through pain and grief of losing a child, they were both pulling opposite ways, snapping the rope and having the tension, harsh, brisk relationship we see in here and in the T.V show. Neither one can really move on from what happened, or the other one completely because Harrietta's ending is incomplete, it's unknown and that unknown both haunts them, but blame and hate and guilt have, well, wrecked them and their relationship.

Secondly, you're going to notice some refurbished lines in this chapter. I did that on purpose. I really wanted to draw some similarities between Tommy and Harry, not just physical, and so, re-used some sentences that Hermione thought about Harry in the last chapter to, (hopefully, if I've done it right), subtly pin that into the fic. For example, no one does tenacious like Tommy/Harry. She could deal with an angry Tommy/Harry, not a hurt one, and so forth.

Lastly, is Polly's reaction to Harry. In the show, there are some signs and hints, even if it is just belief on their part, that their gypsy blood has some magical connotation. We see it with the names on the bullet, the cursed horse, Polly's prophetic dreams of her estranged daughter dying and them turning out to be true. I thought it would be fun to play with that theme in this fic. Of course, I'm not going to make the Shelby's out to be witches or wizards, but there's something deeper there, in the gypsy blood that we're going to explore. Think old hearth magic.

 **A few quick questions:** Whose P.O.V do you wish to see next? Did you like the multiple P.O.V's this chapter? As for Hermione, do you want her to have a pairing in this? If so, who do you want her paired with?

 **Thank you** to everybody who has favourited, followed and reviewed. If you have the time, drop a review, they're the fuel to my mad muses. 😉


	4. No words

_**Thomas Shelby's P.O.V.**_

"Hurry up, John!"

Tommy shouted as he slammed his car door, coming to a stop on the cracked sidewalk next to his older brother, Arthur. Today was a day to keep time, no dalliances, no hesitation, no bloody waiting around for John, his younger brother, and his wife, Esme to stop fuckin' arguing for five minutes, so they could get on the road. Today was the day of expansion, to get into London, leave their little message for Sabini, perhaps celebrate for an hour or two like his brothers will wish they would, and get back to business in Birmingham. In, done, out. Simple. All's well that ends well.

"I'm bloody coming!"

Came the disembodied voice of John Shelby from the soot blackened house. Tommy smirked as he heard Esme's answering yell, something long-winded, garbled, ending with a resolute _don't come back_. If she ever lived through with that threat, John would have been kicked out years ago and they would only be on their second child, not fifth. Reaching into his coat pocket, Tommy pulled out a pack of smokes, flicking the lid, he flipped out one, struck a match and took a calming puff. Arthur pulled something out of his own dusty coat, a little glass bottle, printed and clean, brown liquid sloshing around inside as he popped the cork and downed a mouthful.

"Seven o'clock, twelve o'clock, ten if I'm still sober. I got it from the doctor. Keeps me nice and calm."

Tommy hummed as he stretched over, snatched the bottle and wearily eyed the label. Lifting the bottle to his nose, he took a whiff before scowling as medicinal fumes lingered in his nostrils. For a flash, he could see it, feel it, hear it. The taste of dirt in his teeth, coating him. The sound of explosions in the distance, cries of dying men ringing in his ears, cries that would never quieten. He could feel the damp coldness clinging to him, soaking into his pores, so cold. It was there and then it was gone, and Tommy pushed it all back, all away, all down. Holding up the bottle, he wiggled it at Arthur.

"Same thing they gave us in the trenches to stop us fuckin' wanking."

Yes, because, after what they, he and his brothers and his brethren in arms, had seen, done, the nightmares, all of it and none of it, the cure would be found in a little glass bottle of iodine and opium. Bloody doctors didn't understand. Most of them hadn't been there themselves, safely locked away back in England, no blood splashing on their faces. Almost bashfully, Arthur jammed his hands into his slack pockets, kicking back against the car.

"Polly says it's good for me temper. It slows me down."

Of course she bloody well did. If Polly wasn't trying to hamper them one way, she was cutting ties another. Fingering the bottle for a moment, staring at the label of a smiling man in a pressed suit cartooned onto the front, Tommy flipped the damned thing upside down, letting the liquid inside pour out and splash onto the pavement.

"Arthur, there's some things Polly doesn't understand. I need you fast, not slow, eh?"

Then he was shucking the bottle over his car, into the road, hearing the glass shatter like their own souls had back in the Somme. Arthur stared after the bottle for a long while before nodding. Tommy knew his brother, knew he hated to be sedated like a broken horse, but because Polly had said to do it, so Arthur did it. That was his brother. A good soldier, always awaiting orders, never taking the steps for himself. Just then the front door opened, and John came tumbling out, slamming it shut behind him, clothes haggard and wrinkled, fighting to button up the crotch of his trousers while trying to simultaneously shirk on his suit jacket.

"She wouldn't let go of me fuckin' leg."

Arthur chuckled as he and Tommy pulled away from the sidewalk, backing up to the car.

"I bet that's not all she wouldn't let go of."

Tommy slipped into his car, Arthur opening the other door for John to slink into before entering himself. The sooner they got this done with, the sooner Tommy could deal with the fuckin' Irish, settle down, and life could go back to the way it was. Nonetheless, always the one to push his patience, John stayed stubbornly on the side of the road, messing with his cap.

"You know she's against this Tom? She's got _opinions._ "

Tommy sighed as he tapped against the steering wheel of the open top car. Oh, he knew Esme's _opinions_ on their expansion plans well enough. They all did after the family meeting yesterday, where she had ranted and raved about the dangers, the _boogiemen_ down in London, her soft dreams of wanting her, the kids and John to move away, far away, start some sort of fuckin' farm and have chickens. _Bloody Chickens._ Did she not know her husband a lick? John would be there for a week before, out of anger and boredom, he would snap every single one of those chickens' necks. That sort of life wasn't for them. None of them. No Shelby with any Shelby blood would end in such a way.

"Nothing wrong with opinions, John. Now come on."

Arthur clapped John on the back.

"Get in the fuckin' car."

"Shut up."

John cursed as he climbed in, followed by a smirking Arthur who sat on the side of the two-seater car, balanced precariously on the window ledge. Tommy took off, the engine happily grumbling beneath them before, as always, Arthur made a show. Standing up, he held his arms out wide.

"Right! The Peaky Blinders are going on fuckin' holiday!"

John yanked him down just as fast as Arthur had stood up.

"Sit down, ya mad bastard!"

The two laughed as they traded good natured blows, little smacks, and Tommy felt the ghost of a smile flutter across his mouth. That's all he had now. Ghosts and phantoms, numbed feelings, muted colours. _In the bleak midwinter…_ As he turned down the road to head out of Birmingham, passing the old laundrette, was when he saw her. Polly, hair wild and loose, coat missing, mud caking her heeled boots, fire in her eyes as she spotted them, waving, shouting.

"Tommy, wait!"

For what felt like the hundredth time that morning, Tommy sighed. Polly had made her own opinions on their endeavour perfectly clear. Tommy didn't need to listen to them again. Not right now. So, he went to drive past her. Of course, Polly being Polly, the mad bint that she was, glared and darted out, right in front of his fuckin' car. Tommy slammed on the breaks, heart leaping as he looked up, finding the hood of his car mere inches away from colliding with a heavily breathing Polly. He didn't know how long he stayed like that before the anger came, boiling and rolling, through his blood. Storming out of the car, Tommy slammed the door shut so hard he was sure he had dented the metal.

"Are you bloody insane, Pol? What do you think you ar-"

Yet, Polly was smiling, widely, brightly, jogging towards him, grabbing him by his biceps, grip tight and unforgiving.

"Where the hell have you been? I've been from Margate over to the Marquise looking for you! Doesn't matter, come. Come!"

Looking for him? No, she wouldn't have found him. He had been down at the foundries near the cut, a place he didn't often visit, putting a bullet into that Irishman's head for the two Irish fuckers he had met down at the Black Lion yesterday. Tommy didn't like killing, especially when it was done in need of someone other than he and his family, but, then again, he liked being coerced and blackmailed even less. Those two, the Irish woman and man, would get their turn, when he found out exactly what it was, in its entirety, that they wanted from him and his family.

No. First Sabini, then the Irish. One at a time. It was the only way he was going to make it through this fuckin' day without a headache. None too gently, Tommy tugged himself free from Polly's grasp as she tried to yank him, force him to follow her. Turning around, he opened the car door from over his shoulder.

"I'm too busy for this shit today, Pol. You've said what you've had to say."

Tommy knew Polly was against the expansion, well, the timing of it, but fuckin' hell, running in front of his car to stop him? Perhaps she was the one who needed the trench medicine she had tried to get Arthur to guzzle.

"If you get in that car, Thomas Shelby, I will burn down the bookie. Do you understand me? This has nothing to do with London business!"

Her voice was unsympathetic, severe, demanding. It wasn't a tone she used often, rarely. Tommy's hand stalled on the car door handle, the cold metal biting into his palm. Slowly, Tommy glanced at Polly and found her smile still firmly in place, wedged and sealed, and bloody hell, it unsettled him.

"What has you smiling?"

Her grin only grew.

"Please, just-… You won't believe me. You have to come."

He searched her face, her eyes, saw the glint there, the barely concealed jubilation, the excitement, and for, certainly now, the hundredth time, Tommy sighed. The car door closed with a bang. Blindly, he chucked the car keys to Arthur who snatched them from the air.

"We're taking a little detour lads."

Two exasperated groans came from John and Arthur, who had slid up to the driver's seat, as they went to pull the car closer to the sidewalk to park. However, Tommy wasn't finished as he grabbed Polly's elbow and spoke loudly, clearly, looking the smaller woman, but equally as dangerous, right in the eye.

"But we _are_ leaving for London by noon."

Polly shrugged at him but that glint in her eye turned keen, serrated. She pulled away then, spinning on her heel, walking back the way she had come thundering down, forcing Tommy to follow her as he was eventually flanked by John and Arthur.

* * *

 _ **Thomas Shelby's P.O.V.**_

The first sign was the car. Crimson red, abnormally intense against the backdrop of greys that seemed to make up Birmingham's landscape, parked right outside the Shelby bookies. Offhandedly, Tommy was reminded of the days when their mother was alive, when she would teach them little verses from the bible around the hearth every Sunday morning because church was too expensive, and father had drank their food money during the week. Arthur had liked the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, John David and Goliath, Tommy, however, preferred the book of revelation.

When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, 'Come and see!' Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword. The rider on the red horse… _War._ But this was no apocalypse, this was no horse or horseman and Tommy reigned in his errant thoughts. He needed another smoke and a shot of whiskey, perhaps a bit of the pipe to calm his bloody mind down.

Polly paid it no mind as she strode passed it, over to the front door, unlocking it and swiftly entering followed by Arthur, John and Tommy. When they were all inside, Polly relocked the door. People were crowding outside, getting anxious, and the bookie should have been opened for business hours ago. What exactly had Polly been up to if she, of all people, had kept the bookie closed if there was money to be made? Still, she didn't speak as she marched through the desks, around the corner, passed the winnings boards and towards the back where the family rooms were kept safely separated behind two thick wooden doors and shiny locks. Like a good little boy, or a man who was ready to get this over with so he could get back to work, Tommy followed diligently. Strangely, the family room, where they held their private meetings, were wide open, inviting, and Tommy could hear voices coming from inside. One, evidently their youngest brother, Finn's.

"How do you keep winning?"

Tommy heard Finn whine. Another voice, deep and rich, a woman's, answered back almost gravely.

"Pure, unfiltered talent, kid."

Tommy turned the corner, crossed the border between bookie and Livingroom, and saw Finn sat at the head of the small, rounded, family table, facing the door. Finn was grinning, playing cards clutched between his hands protectively, eyes darting between the stack of coins spewed across the middle of the table and his guest, eyeing her up, debating the odds. The woman threw another three guineas into the pile in the middle, daring Finn to carry on. There wasn't much to see of the woman as she sat opposite Finn, back to the double doors, but the fuckin' hair. Thick, unruly, onyx black, half of it rolled and pinned to the back of her head using a strange stick, knobbled, reedy and elongated, the rest left to fall down her back in a dense curtain. Finn scowled.

"I'm only two years younger than you. Are you cheating?"

Tommy stalked closer, still a good few feet away, but close enough to see the girl's hand. Spades, an Ace, a King, a Queen, a Jack and a ten. Royal flush. Still, Finn, having had his ego bruised by the prodding of his age, threw four guineas onto the pile that was already quite a healthy weight. No doubt, that was exactly what the woman had wanted, and Finn had walked right into her little palm.

"Me? Cheat? _Never."_

The young woman couldn't sound more wry and deadpanned sardonic if she had tried. Tommy took a step out of the doorway, into the light coming in from the windows by the back, Arthur, John and Polly trailing behind and Finn spotted them, beaming at their arrival.

"Tommy!"

Finn threw his cards down, a lonely and lowly pair of twos greeting them, and stood, tugging on the hem of his untucked shirt to straighten it out. Tommy nodded at him, but his eyes trailed to the girl's hand, watching as her hand clenched around the cards, nearly bending them in two, thumb stilling from running over the glossy faces, her other hand which had been lifting a cig to her mouth falling still, frozen.

"You alright there, Finn? Who's this?"

Tommy prayed it wasn't some girl Finn had knocked up, they had enough on their plates as it was, without adding a crying babe and a strange woman to the mix. Why else would Polly drag him all the way here to meet a young woman otherwise? Eventually, the girl came to herself, sighed deeply, resigned, gently folded her cards down face first on the table, and stubbed the smoke out in the ashtray next to her. Finn didn't answer him. Instead, the young woman stood, a small thing for sure, barely reaching Tommy's shoulder if they stood side by side, and ran a hand down her black skirts, smoothing it out. Her back was straight and true, tight, shoulders back and locked. _Proud but nervous._ Then she was speaking.

"My name's Harrietta Shelby."

And she was turning, and he sees her. _Sees her._ He sees the dreams of her he's had over the years, hazy and vivid and torturous to remember when awake, dreams he equally treasured and loathed, and it's hard to put them together. She isn't as tall as Lizzie, not like he thought she would be. She doesn't have his widows peak, not like her dream counterpart. She doesn't have his soft waves, but Lizzies wild curl, but somehow, someway, through it all, dream and here, it's _more._

She had her grandmothers' eyes, extraordinarily clear and vivacious. She had Lizzie's willowy figure, though, from what he could see through thick jumper and long skirt brushing flat boot, she was wiry, strong, like Arthur. She had John's broad shoulders, Polly's short stature, Ada's impenetrable air of pride, but there, staring back at him was his own face, softened, just slightly, barely, by femininity. Right there, standing in front of him, was a little piece of himself, a shard of his soul, that he thought he had lost forever.

He sees her as a babe, just after Lizzie had given birth, so innocent, so small, so delicate and fragile, cradled in his arms, still smeared with blood as he smiled down at her and she blinked up at him. He felt her right then, felt the weight, the warmth, of her in his slack arms as if he was back there, in that old dusty room, still holding her, rocking her, saying his first hello. He felt and saw it all and for once in his fuckin' life, Tommy was left speechless. There was movement behind him, noise not registering, not fully, but he was stuck, grounded, solid… Lost. There were no words.

"Bloody 'ell, you look just like your Pa!"

Arthur exclaimed abruptly as he walked forward. All Tommy could do was watch, tongue-less and mindless, as Harrietta gave a hesitant smile, offering out her hand to an advancing Arthur.

"Nice to meet you-"

Arthur cut her off by brushing her hand away and pulling her into a hug, squeezing tightly before pulling back slightly to look down at her, hands braced on her shoulders.

"None of that now! Family don't shake hands! Don't suppose you remember me? I'm your uncle Arthur. You used to giggle up a storm when I threw you in the air and caught you. Eh, here, this is-"

Arthur slid an arm around her shoulders, tugging her into his side as he waved over at John, who too, was skidding forward, smiling and still, Tommy was there, feet planted to the floor, blinking, adrift in memories and dreams and hopes and fears and every god-damned thing in-between.

"Your uncle John. You pissed on me once. It's good to see you again, pip-squeak."

John joked as he unabashedly ruffled her hair. She chuckled and jerked her head away but the noise haunted Tommy. It was the same chuckle, not an octave changed, that she would make when Arthur bounced her in the air, when Polly would wiggle her nose, when fifteen year old Tommy would make faces, or run a finger along the sole of her foot, or blow hot air into her face or bounce her on his hip when she couldn't sleep or-

Too much. Was he breathing? He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He could barely feel himself standing upright. Then she was looking at him, the dimpled smile on her face, one so much like his own at that age, so alive, was cracking and crumbling and the laughter and joy of the room died viciously as they all, one by one, twisted to look at him too. He tried to say something, anything, but there was nothing he could find, no words, none.

She pulled away from Arthur and John carefully, slowly, inching towards him until she came an arms breadth away and still, Tommy couldn't speak. She reached into her pocket in her skirts and pulled out a yellow piece of paper, aged, wrinkled and creased and gradually, held it out for him to take. His hand trembled as he took it, but he didn't open it. He knew what it was, the only thing it could be. The letter they had left with Harrietta the day she was taken. The paper crinkled in his hand as fist clenched. Her eyes darted between his own and the scrunched letter.

"Is it good?"

She asked in an emotionless voice, dead and raspy and horridly reconciled. The question was hefty, robust, tired. She looked ready for rejection, to be grabbed by the scruff of her jumpers' collar and chucked out onto the streets like a dead rat and finally, seeing the resignation, seeing her hand drop and her chin lift as she readied to leave herself, Tommy came hurtling back to his own body. She had the letter. This wasn't another dream. She really was here. Right here. In front of him. There were no words. _No words._

He found himself moving, pulling her towards him or him towards her, it was hard to tell, enfolding her into his arms, kissing her forehead before resting his cheek on head, hand in her hair, entangling, rooting itself there, eyes sliding closed as something wet trickled down his cheek. She still smelled of sweet-pea and honey.

"Took you long enough."

He croaked and he's crying, he knows he is, his voice is harsh and guttural and it's the first time in years, _years_ , before the war, before Harrietta's abduction, before it all, that he had allowed himself to cry. She hugged him back and her own voice is just as broken as his, just as wet.

"I took the scenic route."

* * *

 _ **Thomas Shelby's P.O.V.**_

Harrietta was in the back of the bookie's, in Tommy's office, making a phone call to a friend she had waiting for her back in the Grand Hotel, letting the friend know that she was alive and well but wouldn't be back anytime soon. Hermione, Tommy thought Harry had said her name was, when she excused herself after pulling away from him eventually. Tommy thought she just needed some air and time to collect herself.

Since Harrietta's departure, the room had fallen to silence, unsure and unsteady. Polly had been quick to send Finn away, out to Esme and the rest, away from the important conversation. He had left after a bit of huffing and puffing hot air. John and Arthur had taken seats at the far wall, on the sofa, reclining, still close due to the cramped room. Tommy sat near the unlit hearth, in one of the high back chairs, trying to gather his own nerves with a smoke. Polly was standing by the windows, staring off and away into whatever grim thoughts that were piercing her lips and narrowing her eyes.

"She hasn't said much about, well, about _before._ "

Tommy took another deep drag as his eyes settled on Polly's backlit profile.

"I can hear a but in there, Pol."

Polly detached herself from the windows and light, slinking over to the shaded chair near him, near the last highbacked leather in front of him, as she conspiratorially peeped through the open doors to the bookie, checking to see if the rooms were clear. Arthur and John, knowing something was coming, leant forward to hear better as Polly licked her lips.

"She's littered in scars, Tommy."

Tommy blinked once, twice, before he threw his cig into the dead hearth. Of course, he had seen the one on her forehead, that one was hard to miss. It was an ugly thing, thick, still pink even though it was knotted and old, jagged as it dogged down her forehead in a zigzag, touching base at the tip of the arch of her eyebrow. In full honesty, it looked like she had been shot in the head, barely moving her face in time for the bullet to skim rather than lodge. His voice turned bottomless, stony, treacherous.

"What do you mean, _littered_?"

Polly lifted her glass of gin, one she had been winding her hands around since Harrietta had left the room and downed the whole thing. Tommy's jaw clenched. That was never a good sign.

"Look at her left hand when she reaches for something. I caught sight of it last night when she finally took her gloves off and had a whiskey. Branded onto her hand are words Tommy. _Words_. I must not tell lies _._ I swear on the mother Mary, that's what it fuckin' says."

Polly stood up, gave one last look through the open doors to make sure they were alone before she wandered over to the table, picked up a half empty bottle of gin and poured herself another three fingers.

"That's not all. She had her sleeves rolled up when she washed her hands earlier and on her forearm is a nasty one. Round, thick. It looks as if a rail-road spike has been hammered through her arm. There's another on her neck, just where tendon meets shoulder, that looks as if someone tried to slit her throat. Her fingers are covered in them, little ones that look as if she's gone fifteen rounds in the ring with someone like Arthur until her knuckles split open. Of course, there's the one on her forehead, but there's also one, the lord knows how big, on her foot, discoloured, peeking out from the top of her boot, looking as if she's been burnt. And that's only from what I could see with her thick clothing."

Tommy tried to swallow down the bile.

"What are you trying to say, Polly?"

Polly placed her glass down and braced herself against the table and took in a deep breath.

"I'm saying, just because those wounds have scarred doesn't mean she isn't _hurt._ She's sixteen and she looks as if she's come straight off a battlefield over in France. She has the same look in her eye, that horrid little shadow, that you and the boys had when you finally came home. Someone must have done that hurting. They could still be out there. She's a Shelby, Tommy. She's one of us and we are the Peaky Blinders… And nobody fucks with the Peaky Blinders."

Tommy stood from his chair.

"Then, we'll just have to make sure that she isn't _hurt_ again. They'll get their due. Isn't that right?"

Arthur leant back in his chair.

"Damn fuckin' straight."

John nodded along, rolling a matchstick around his tongue. Tommy, however, tried to settle his own heart as he placed a palm on Polly's shoulder, forcing her to look at him, right in the eye, and for once, bared himself open.

"She's home Pol. _Home._ I've just got her home and I don't want-"

Tommy couldn't bring himself to say it. Once you said it, it was there, alive, a real, tangible possibility. _I don't want to lose her._ Polly nodded in understanding, the only one in the entire family who could read him sometimes, when he let his guards fall, which was becoming less and less each passing day. Silently, he could see in her eyes, that she agreed with him, that whatever happened before, was before. Harrietta would come to them with her story when she was ready. If they pushed, she could bolt. No matter how much they wanted answers, Tommy was ready to cut for them, they had to be patient.

"Everything alright?"

Tommy's hand fell away from Polly's shoulder as he took a step back, gaze flickering over to the door to find Harrietta waiting in the entryway, eyeing them all and obviously taking caution at the thick atmosphere. Polly answered her with a big smile and a _of course_ as Tommy nodded, falling back to sit at the table. Something glinted in her eye but it was gone in a flash as she smiled and entered the room, taking the seat opposite him.

"While I remember, I believe these are yours."

Harrietta said as she pulled out two photos from her pockets, pushing them along the table towards Tommy. He caught a glimpse of her scar, scrawled, pointy, _I must not tell_ lies, and his stomach roiled. He picked up the smaller one, the one of him, Lizzie and Harrietta just a week old. They all looked so young, so untroubled, so content and innocent. But here they were. Lizzie was plying her trade up and down the cut, likely in a backend house down in the slums by now earning her coin. Tommy couldn't remember the last time he had truly smiled or laughed, not since this photo. And Harrietta, his own daughter, was scarred and bruised. He wanted to reach into that photo and shake his younger self, hit him, cut him, anything to get him to realise, to just enjoy that happiness for the short few months it lasted.

"Aye, Pol, look how young you look In this one. No crows feet or-"

Arthur joked as he picked up the last photo, flipping it to show Polly as she laughed and hit him up the side of the head.

"Less of the old, you."

The three, Arthur, John and Polly started talking amongst themselves, pointing out people, cousins, reliving better times, happy times, memories and all Tommy could do was look at that younger version of himself and be jealous. Words kept failing him today, it would seem.

"Is that-… Is that my mother? Lizzie Stark?"

Tommy forced his gaze away from the photo, over to Harrietta, whose voice had turned soft, gentle.

"Yeah, that's your mother."

Harrietta frowned.

"Is she still alive?"

Tommy smiled and placed the photo down on the table. They were happy in that photo, him, Lizzie and Harrietta, and really, they could be so again. Harrietta was here. Perhaps they could never get back to that photo, Tommy was too broken to ever be that boy again, him and Lizzie were… Complicatedly censorious at best, but there was a chance now, a hope of something better than what was.

"Very much alive. She lives just down the road from here. When we come back from London, I'll take you straight to meet her."

The conversation between Polly, Arthur and John broke cleanly off as Polly rounded on him. Of course she would pick that up.

"London? London? Tommy, what-… You can't take her to London! Not when-"

His eyes became hard, voice deceivingly calm.

"She'll come to London with me, John and Arthur. We'll take her to meet her Aunt Ada and little Karl, they can spend some time together while I finish the _property_ business I have up there. Then, we'll all spend some time together before driving back. She's just got here Polly, business can't wait but I'm not going to leave her behind again."

The last time he had left Harrietta behind, going to sort his father's drinking bill he had racked up from the Lee's, Tommy had gotten back to find Lizzie had already handed Harrietta over to the services, no conversation, no waiting, not listening to a thing he said, without even letting him say goodbye. Polly, for a moment, looked like she was going to argue violently but Harrietta beat her to the punch line.

"Little Karl?"

John grinned at Harrietta.

"Ada's little boy."

Harry looked down at the photo still on the table.

"I have a nephew?"

Arthur came over to the table, shoving his hands in his pockets as he propped a hip against the edge, grinning down at Harrietta.

"Seven in total, four nephews and three nieces if you count John's brood. Still climbing too with the way he and Esme carry on. Fuckin' rabbits that they are."

Tommy stretched over the short distance separating them and placed his own hand over her limp one laying flat against the polished wood. He could feel the scars there. Her hand jerked away, swiftly, instinctually and Tommy bit harshly into his cheek to keep the smile in place. Patience. He needed to be patient. Clocking on to her behaviour, her dip in control, Harrietta shot him a smile, but it was small, weak and a little bit broken.

"You can meet them all once we get back from London. I promise."

Her smile blossomed into something real and bright at the promise, as Tommy stood up, buttoning his suit jacket. They really did need to leave if they were going to get to London before nightfall. John piped up as he came to a stand too, flicking his half-chewed matchstick into the cold hearth.

"Not everyone is going to fit in your car."

Shite. He hadn't thought of that. Neither had he thought of the dead body he currently had wrapped in tarp folded and crammed into the back of his car, three shovels next to it. However, Harry was coming to a stand too, answering.

"I'll take mine as well. Someone can ride with me."

Sorted. When they stopped around Oxford to fill up the tanks with gas, he would have a quite word with Arthur and John, tell 'em to take the body out to the countryside, near Sabini's boarders and to dig a pit and toss the body as he and Harry carried on to London, where they'd meet up at Ada's. The boys would be none to happy at the extra leg work, but it wasn't nothing a pint of Guinness wouldn't iron out. Dead body or not, Tommy wasn't about to leave Harrietta behind again. Mentally checked through, Tommy placed a hand at the back of Harrietta, leading her out of the bookies with John and Arthur bringing up the rear.

"You already have my keys Arthur. I'll ride with Harrietta, you take John."

As they stepped out of the bookie's, for once, Birmingham was graced with sunshine, bright and warm and cheerily yellow. John and Arthur smiled at Harrietta as they passed and headed down the road to Tommy's car, which she returned before holding her own keys out to Tommy, smiling almost shyly.

"I don't know the way to London."

Tommy chuckled as he took them, getting into the car as Harrietta slipped into the passenger seat up front. Nevertheless, before either the car could set off or Tommy could answer, the back door of Harry's car opened, Polly stuck her head in, moved Harrietta's small suitcase down to the floor of the cab, clambered in before she sat down, shutting the door loudly behind her. Propping his elbow on the back of the seat, Tommy turned around slowly and cocked a brow at a sarcastically grinning Polly.

"If Harry's going, I'm going. While you conduct _business,_ I can keep an eye out for her. Plus, I too wish to see Ada and Karl. If the boys get a fuckin' holiday, we girls do too."

Tommy scrubbed at his eyes before he gave in and turned back around to the steering wheel, igniting the engine. Polly, unlike Ada, knew what to look out for encase things went south in London. She would know where to go, what to do and where the money was kept. Additionally, with Harrietta there, sitting right next to him, there was no way to argue with Polly without slipping about their… Nefarious business ambitions being undertook. Polly bloody well knew all this. So, pulling the car out into the road, just as he passed John and Arthur on their way to his car down the way, Tommy shouted at them.

"Head to Esme's, tell her she's in charge at the bookies until Sunday. I'll meet you on the road through Evesham."

"On it!"

And then they were weaving through Small Heath, on their way out of Birmingham with the sun smiling down upon them. Reservedly, carefully, Tommy reached over and grasped onto Harrietta's hand that was sitting on her thigh closest to him. She flinched, there was no doubt in that, but she didn't jerk the limb free this time. She didn't look at him, he could see a stuttering in her breath, but just as he went to pull the hand away, she turned her own one around and threaded her fingers through his. He squeezed gently but unashamedly firmly. There were no words. None. This time, Tommy realizes, here and now, there didn't need to be.

* * *

 **Do we like it so far? Or have I gone and absolutely murdered Tommy's character?** I'll be honest, Tommy Shelby is a bastard to right for. This chapter was so hard to get out. However, I'm hoping it came out alright, or at least, partially enjoyable and that, within time, I can get him down right lol.

 **Whose P.O.V do you want to see next?**

Thank you to everyone who followed, favourited and reviewed! If you have the time, please drop a review, they keep the inspiration flowing.


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